The Constitutional Transitions Clinic is pleased to announce that for its second year, the United Nations Development Programme’s Regional Bureau for Arab States, through its Regional Center in Cairo, will be joining the existing clinical partnership with the West Asia and North Africa Office of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). This new aspect to the partnership will greatly expand the reach and penetration of Constitutional Transitions’ agenda-setting research. “We are delighted that the UNDP Arab Regional Bureau has joined the Constitutional Transitions Clinic as a client partner organization”, said Constitutional Transitions’ Faculty Director, Sujit Choudhry.
The UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States helps countries across the Arab region to build and share their own solutions to development challenges within UNDP’s main focus areas, one of which is democratic governance. The UNDP Regional Bureau for Regional Arab States serves country offices located in 18 Arab countries and territories, and the Regional Center in Cairo was established in 2008 to ensure effective, timely and responsive advisory and technical support to these country offices. The Regional Center in Cairo is able to quickly mobilize support by connecting UNDP country offices and national partners to UNDP’s global network of development experts – both inside and outside the organization. Constitutional Transitions looks forward to contributing as a member of this global network of experts.
Students in the Constitutional Transitions Clinic will continue to provide “back office” research support to International IDEA on questions of constitutional design that are central to ongoing constitutional processes in the Middle East and North Africa region. The first three reports from this partnership (“Constitutional Courts after the Arab Spring: Appointment Mechanisms and Relative Judicial Independence”; “Political Party Finance Regulation: Lessons for the Middle East and North Africa”; and “Semi-Presidentialism as Power Sharing: Lessons for the Middle East and North Africa”) will be released shortly, with three further reports forthcoming in Fall 2014 (“Anti-Corruption: Constitutional Frameworks for the Middle East and North Africa”; “Decentralization in Unitary States: Constitutional Frameworks for the Middle East and North Africa”; and “Oil and Natural Gas: Constitutional Frameworks for the Middle East and North Africa”).