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As part of a longer trip to the United States, following visits to law schools in Washington DC, the head of the MCC Public Law Center participated at a conference on 29 October 2022, organized at Harvard Law School (HLS). HLS houses a Chapter of the famous, conservative US constitutional law organization, the Federalist Society. They requested Prof. Lee Strang (University of Toledo, College of Law, MCC visiting fellow in 2021) to organize the conference, who extended an invitation to our colleague to participate. The event was co-organized by the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
The topic of the symposium titled “Common Good Constitutionalism” was a new method proposed for the interpretation of the US Constitution, centered around the common good as defined by a strong centralized executive power. The author of the book “Common Good Constitutionalism” is Prof. Adrian Vermuele, professor of law at HLS, who is going to visit MCC for a lecture at the end of November 2022. His theory proposed in the book has met harsh criticism from all directions, from conservative and liberal constitutional scholars dealing with constitutional interpretation. The conference event was a great occasion to voice and air these concerns, through discussing arguments for and against the new method of interpretation.
American, Canadian and Irish professors sat on the panel on “Common Good”, moderated by our colleague, dr. Márton Sulyok. Among the panelists was Prof. Cass Sunstein, professor of law at HLS, the co-author of Nudge, Professors Lawrence Solum and Linda McClain, as well as Grégoire Webber from Canada and Conor Casey from Ireland/UK.
