Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity

Rainer Grote · Tilmann Röder

Jan 2012 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity examines the question of whether something similar to an "Islamic constitutionalism" has emerged out of the political and constitutional upheaval witnessed in many parts of North Africa, the Middle East, and Central and Southern Asia. In order to identify its defining features and to assess the challenges that Islamic constitutionalism poses to established concepts of constitutionalism, this book offers an integrated analysis of the complex frameworks in Islamic countries, drawing on the methods and insights of comparative constitutional law, Islamic law, international law and legal history. European and North American experiences are used as points of reference against which the peculiar challenges, and the specific answers given to those challenges in the countries surveyed, can be assessed. The book also examines ways in which the key concepts of constitutionalism, including fundamental rights, separation of powers, democracy and rule of law, may be adapted to an Islamic context, thus providing valuable new insights on the prospects for a genuine renaissance of constitutionalism in the Islamic world in the wake of the "Arab spring."

About the author

Rainer Grote is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg and an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Göttingen, Germany. He was a Visiting Professor at universities in France (Paris II), Turkey, and Chile and has worked as a legal expert and consultant on law reform projects in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. He is a coeditor of Constitutions of the Countries of the World (OUP) and teaches and writes in the fields of constitutional law, comparative law and public international law. Tilmann J. Röder is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Asia and North Africa Projects of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. His recent research has focused on the subjects of rule of law and constitution building in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, and Kashmir. Together with Rainer Grote he organizes an ongoing series of lectures on Law & Development. He holds a law degree from Humboldt University of Berlin and a doctorate degree from Goethe University Frankfurt.