Melbourne Forum Reports

The seventh Melbourne Forum on Constitution Building in Asia and the Pacific explored the nature and quality of representation in legislatures from the perspective of those who are represented; in other words, representation from the ground up. It considered what people want from their representatives; how the people get what they need from their representatives at the time of elections and between elections; and issues of state capture and money politics that inhibit representation working effectively for the people. This Forum asked how the constitution and institutional structures of government can be developed to meet the expectations of the people and the constitutional and democratic responsibilities of representatives.

This report presents experiences of sixteen jurisdictions from across the Asia Pacific region in relation to the constitutional principles and practices for effective representation, as well as the challenges to the quality of representation arising from political practices, state capture, and the global and intergenerational crisis of climate change.

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All constitutions also have what might be described as an external face, by which the state is presented to the rest of the world and able to engage with it. The external face of constitutions is manifest in a range of ways: the definition of the citizenry and territory of the state; commitments to particular international policy positions, such as peace or multilateralism; provisions for the status of international law; and the creation and empowerment of institutions responsible for conducting international relations on behalf of the state.

The external face of national constitutions has always been important, but its significance is greater than ever in the current age of globalisation. International organisations and norms have proliferated across most areas of human activity. International trade, investment and development assistance have been catalysts for deep and sustained economic interdependence. There is a growing list of urgent and, in some cases, existential problems that require collective and effective global action.

The Melbourne Forum 2021 tackled four themes:

• the relevance and significance of international approval of new constitutions;
• constitutional procedures for entering into treaties and other international commitments;
• constitutional frameworks for international investment approvals; and
• international engagement with sub-national jurisdictions.

As a result of the continuing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, this Melbourne Forum was held as a series of four online seminars.

View recordings of the seminars and links to the papers for each speaker

Representation is critical, both in constitution‐making processes and in the institutions for democratic government that constitutions put in place. The Melbourne Forum 2020 tackled issues for democratic representation from the standpoint of emergencies. Representation faces particular challenges in times of emergency. Melbourne Forum 2020 uses as its lens into the impact of emergencies on democratic representation the Covid‐19 pandemic, which has given rise to both health and economic emergencies of major proportions in countries across the world. These two linked emergencies have called for an effective response by states, with results that have varied from impressive success to significant failure.

As a result of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, this Melbourne Forum was held as a series of four online seminars.

View recordings of the seminars and links to the papers from each speaker

Inclusion and participation are familiar topics in constitution building. They can be interdependent - even the most broad-based participation, for example, may raise questions about who to include - but they also raise distinct issues as well. There remains some ambivalence, both in the literature and in practice, about both the inherent value of inclusion and participation and the ways in which they can be made effective. Concerns fall into at least five categories asking: why, who, when, how and to what effect?  Experience offers insight into each of these questions, without finally resolving them. The many questions raised by inclusion and participation in constitution-building were considered at the 2019 Melbourne Forum and captured in the country papers and online report.

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The Third Melbourne Forum, jointly organised by International IDEA and ConTransNet, focused on the magnitude of constitutional change. Culture affects constitutional arrangements in all parts of the world. The Asia‐Pacific region offers a particularly useful context for this purpose, as the region is home to an extraordinary variety of cultures.The Forum aimed to deepen our understanding of how culture interacts with constitution building across Asia and the Pacific, in ways that throw light on the issues presented by culture in this important region and that inform global practice more generally. It also sought to reflect upon the additional challenges presented by cultural considerations for the implementation of new constitutional arrangements, which almost invariably requires cultural change of some kind. This interim report collects together the contributions from scholars and practitioners across five key themes and includes links to presenter's papers.

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The Second Melbourne Forum, jointly organised by International IDEA and ConTransNet, focused on the magnitude of constitutional change. In terms of process, the Forum explored the choices between making a new constitution, with or without legal rupture; amending an existing Constitution; or avoiding, limiting or postponing formal constitutional change altogether. In relation to substance, the Forum considered how countries have approached major institutional change to the form of government (shifting between parliamentary, semi-presidential and presidential systems) and to the form of the state (shifting between a unitary and a federal or devolved system). This report collects together the contributions from scholars and practitioners from across the Asia-Pacific region on each of these themes.

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The Melbourne Forum on Constitution Building is an annual event co-hosted by the Constitution Transformation Network and International IDEA. The inaugural Melbourne Forum brought together leading academics and practitioners from across Asia and the Pacific to discuss constitution-building in contexts where there is territorially defined societal conflict. Some states in the region have well-established constitutions that were designed with an eye to managing societal conflict, in other states, constitution building is either underway or pending. This report captures insights from eleven polities in the Asia Pacific region, on the themes of federalism and devolution, special autonomy, constitution making processes and constitutional implementation.

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