On October 2-3, 2015, Queen’s Law will host an international conference on “Constitutional Culture,” co-sponsored by the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University, with over twenty speakers from Queen’s, Tel Aviv, Toronto and leading American law schools. The conference will address the ways in which constitutions shape cultures, and the ways in which cultures shape constitutions.

Conference participants will speak to matters of theory as well as analysis of specific and timely topics such as religious freedoms, LGBT rights, immigration, equality, the language of rights, judicial opinion writing, and politicians’ responses to judicial activism. The key note address will be delivered by Reva Siegel of Yale Law School.

This event is being organized by Professor Tsvi Kahana from Queen’s and Professor Yishai Blank from Tel Aviv, and will be open to all students.

In addition to Kahana, Professors Beverley Baines, Cherie Metcalf, Jean Thomas and Jacob Weinrib will present papers, and additional Queen’s Law faculty will serve as discussants. Kahana explains that “’culture’ is an elusive concept, but it obviously affects much of what judges and lawyers do, how they do it. We thought that it would be fascinating to discuss the way culture has affected constitutional law and politics, in Israel, Canada and the United States.”

Kahana wishes to extend special thanks to Jeremy Freedman, Law‘82, as well as the Jeremy and Judith Freedman Family Foundation not only for their support for this event, but for the ongoing collaboration between Queen’s Law and Israeli academic institutions, made possible by their generosity.

Attendance to the conference is free; attendees are asked to RSVP to Natalie Moniz-Henne to confirm attendance.

“Constitutional Culture” is also being offered as an intensive course that will allow students to attend this conference for credit, and provide them with the rare opportunity to hear or read original papers written by the world’s top constitutional thinkers, as well as to engage in discussion about these papers.

This conference is just one of several innovations in the way Queen’s Law is teaching students. In addition to this conference being offered for credit, this year, first-year students will take an introductory legal skills course, and a colloquium on legal philosophy will have students from law, philosophy and political science hear from and meet leading thinkers in the area of legal philosophy.