Centre for Comparative and Public Law's video: Book Talk City State: Constitutionalism and the Megacity OUP 2020 with the author Ran Hirschl

This webinar is organized by the Centre for Comparative and Public Law at The University of Hong Kong and will be held via Zoom Meeting. More than half of the world's population lives in cities; by 2050, it will be more than three quarters. Projections suggest that megacities of 50 million or even 100 million inhabitants will emerge by the end of the century, mostly in the Global South. This shift marks a major and unprecedented transformation of the organization of society, both spatially and geopolitically. Our constitutional institutions and imagination, however, have failed to keep pace with this new reality. Cities have remained virtually absent from constitutional law and constitutional thought, not to mention from comparative constitutional studies more generally. As the world is urbanizing at an extraordinary rate, this book argues, new thinking about constitutionalism and urbanization is desperately needed. This book considers the reasons for the "constitutional blind spot" concerning the metropolis, probes the constitutional relationship between states and (mega)cities worldwide, examines patterns of constitutional change and stalemate in city status, and aims to carve a new place for the city in constitutional thought, constitutional law and constitutional practice. Professor Ran Hirschl is a Professor of Political Science and Law at the University of Toronto and holder of the Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Comparative Constitutionalism at the University of Göttingen. He also heads the Max Planck Fellow Group in Comparative Constitutionalism. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) - the highest academic accolade in that country. Professor Hirschl is the author of several award-winning books including Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism (2004, 2007); Constitutional Theocracy (2010) and Comparative Matters: The Renaissance of Comparative Constitutional Law (2014). Discussants: • Professor Lorenzo Casini, Scuola IMT Alti Studi di Lucca (IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy) • Dr Shitong Qiao, Associate Professor, The University of Hong Kong Chair: Cora Chan, Associate Professor, The University of Hong Kong