Bingham Colloquium 2025 at LSE
Democratic Institutions Under Pressure: Judicial Perspectives

Event Details

Many countries around the world face rising concerns - and often passionate disagreement - about the ability of their institutions to uphold core democratic principles, including the rule of law. How do legislative, executive and judicial institutions share this responsibility in practice? And what do courts do in the most high-profile constitutional cases, when their own role and that of the other two branches may be contested or under attack?

Moderator

Professor Samuel Issacharoff, Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law

Speakers

• Lord (Jonathan) Sumption, Justice of the UK Supreme Court (2012-2018), also formerly served on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal and on the Courts of Appeal of Jersey and Guernse
• Justice (Ret.) Stephen Breyer, Justice of the US Supreme Court (1994-2022), previously Professor at Harvard Law School, where he is now Visiting Professor
• Professor Noelle Lenoir, Member of the Constitutional Council of France (1992-2001), Minister for European Affairs (2002-2004), Professor and President of the Institut de l'Europe at HEC Paris
• Professor Kate O'Regan, Justice of the South African Constitutional Court (1994-2007), also formerly judge ad hoc of the Supreme Court of Namibia, Professor of Human Rights Law and Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford University
  

Event Co-organisers

This event has been co-convened by Bingham Centre Director Dr Jan van Zyl Smit.
Co-convenors are involved at four organising and sponsoring institutions:

Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. By addressing key challenges to the rule of law, this event continues the series of Bingham Lectures, which the Bingham Centre has organised since 2013. The Bingham Lecture 2024 was given by Lord Hermer KC, Attorney General for England and Wales.

London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Law School. With its unique social sciences take on law and legal institutions, LSE has a deep commitment to exploring the questions motivating this symposium, which lie at the intersection of law, politics, and democratic legitimacy.

New York University (NYU), School of Law. NYU School of Law has played a leading role in the design of this colloquium. Our moderator, Professor Samuel Issacharoff, is Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU and author of books including Fragile Democracies: Contested Power in the Era of Constitutional Courts (2015) and Democracy Unmoored: Populism and the Corruption of Popular Sovereignty (2023). His role in designing and moderating this event forms part of the work of the Democracy Project at NYU Law.

Institute d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po), Ecole de Droit. The Law School of Sciences-Po has played an instrumental role in developing the colloquium and the dialogue which it seeks to promote concerning the role of apex courts and constitutional review bodies in both common-law and civil-law systems.

Registration

This event is free to attend but pre-registration is required.

Book Your Place