SURCLA (Sydney University Research Community for Latin America) seminar

Neither sovereigntists nor cosmopolitan judges: transcending the divides in comparative studies

Rodrigo Camarena González (ITAM, Mexico)

Thursday 22 June 2023, 5-6:30pm AEST (Sydney time)

In-person: SLC Common Room 536, Brennan MacCallum Building A18, University of Sydney
Online: Join via Zoom (ID: 81466663672)

Abstract

Should a Mexican judge consider a Nepalese judgment when solving a case despite or because of legal, linguistic and cultural differences? Is this metaphorical dialogue detrimental to sovereignty or a manifestation of today’s interconnectedness? In this talk, I will argue that there is an ongoing interplay of global and local constitutional ideas and practices, a ‘glocalization’ from conception to judicial application. Descriptively, the authorship of an idea – rule, precedent, or even the State- cannot be attributed to a single citizen, nation, or global society but is the hybrid product of dialectics between different spaces. Interpretatively, judges cannot help but to grasp and construe the global idea through a local lens. Normatively, judges, as glocalizers, debate the adequate degree of glocal hybridization of a particular idea, constrained by, but also rebellious to, cultural relations of power. Thus, glocalization provides an analytical framework practical to transcend the conventional debate in comparative law between sovereignists and cosmopolitans.

About the speaker

Rodrigo Camarena González is an associate professor at ITAM (Mexico) where he teaches constitutional law. He has published on precedent, judicial multiculturalism, separation of powers in the Global South, and digital subcitizenhsip in journals such as Ratio Juris, Transnational Legal Theory, World Trade Review, Texas Internationa Law Journal and Democratization. He is also interested in the rights of native peoples, rights of Nature, and the connections between law and music.

Contact

For more information and RSVP for in-person attendance:
Dr Vek Lewis (vek.lewis@sydney.edu.au)

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