Members' Projects

Since 2018, Dr Mara MalagodiLink opens in a new window has been leading the collaborative project #DesignTheLawNepalLink opens in a new window, which aims to create a space for all Nepali citizens to understand and realise their sexual and reproductive health rights by using accessible language and engaging explainers to mobilise the power of visual communication methods.

This is a joint project with Professor Emily AllbonLink opens in a new window, a legal design expert, and Dr Sabrina GermainLink opens in a new window, a medical law expert, at the City Law School (University of London), iProbonoLink opens in a new window, and the Law and Policy Forum for Social JusticeLink opens in a new window (LAPSOJ).

The Legal Design Toolkit has been illustrated by Nepali artist Kripa JoshiLink opens in a new window. It contains case law and legislation explainers to make complex legal processes and policies about SRHR easy to understand and accessible to all. It also features persona cards that represent the lived experience of individuals who face different challenges in accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare. The Toolkit is designed to foster an approach to the enforcement of sexual and reproductive health rights centred around the needs of service users. The English version of the Legal Design Toolkit and User Manual are available to download free of cost from iProbono's website HERELink opens in a new window.

#DesignTheLawNepal has been supported by the Rule of Law Expertise (ROLE) UKLink opens in a new window programme funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and managed by Advocates for International Development (A4ID), the City Law School, the ESRC Impact Fund at the University of Warwick, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Global Challenges Research Fund

For more information on this project, check out Dr Malagodi's profile pageLink opens in a new window.

In 2024, Dr David VitaleLink opens in a new window, together with Prof Michael PalLink opens in a new window (University of Ottawa) and Dr Odile AmmannLink opens in a new window (University of Lausanne), secured over £700,000 for the 3-year, Trans-Atlantic Platform project, "Open Constitutional Democracy: Reconciling Deliberation and Constitutional Democracy" (Open Constitutional Democracy). The project is co-funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research CouncilLink opens in a new window, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of CanadaLink opens in a new window, and the Swiss National Science FoundationLink opens in a new window.

The Open Constitutional Democracy project responds to the phenomenon of democratic decline, widespread loss of political trust, and failures of governance globally. Building on theories of deliberative democracy, it aims to (i) develop a theory of "Open Constitutional Democracy" that enhances democratic participation while continuing to respect the need to disperse power, ensure political accountability, and secure minority rights, (ii) build an innovative and trust-based model of democracy and governance that is in line with our theory of "Open Constitutional Democracy", and (iii) theorise the role of public education, including the social right to education, in such an "Open Constitutional Democracy".

Dr Vitale and Dr Sonia Cruz DávilaLink opens in a new window make up the UK team for the project.

For more information on this project, check out the project webpageLink opens in a new window.

In 2025, Dr Signe LarsenLink opens in a new window secured a British Academy small grantLink opens in a new window to support her research project titled "Post-Imperial Unions: Federal, Transnational, and Regional Constitutionalism after Empires".

This project addresses the pivotal question: What if the European Union were not a historical anomaly, but part of a broader - now largely forgotten - global pattern? In response to imperial decline after WWI, political leaders and intellectuals across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean explored alternatives to both empire and the nation-state. In this project, Dr Larsen develops the concept of "post-imperial unions" to describe the federal, regional, and transnational constitutional projects proposed in the fifty years following WWI - including the European Economic Community, the failed European Defence Community, the Commonwealth, the French Union, the West Indies Federation, and constitutional debates over post-colonial futures in India and Africa. Through comparative archival research in London, Paris, Florence, Delhi, and Lahore, the project recovers the ideas that animated this global constitutional movement. In doing so, it challenges nation-state-centred models of constitutional order and reopens the question of constitutional alternatives to empire in an age of resurgent imperial geopolitics.