Sujit Choudhry is head of Haki Chambers Global, where he practices constitutional law both in Canada and globally. He previously taught at the University of Toronto, New York University, and UC Berkeley, and has been a visiting professor at Reichman University, the City University of Hong Kong, and the University of Melbourne. He has written widely on comparative constitutional law. His previous edited volumes include Security Sector Reform and Constitutional Transitions, Territory and Power in Constitutional Transitions, The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, and Constitutional Design for Divided Societies: Integration or Accommodation?
Michaela Hailbronner holds the Chair for German and International Public Law and Comparative Law at the University of Münster. Michaela has published on questions of comparative constitutional law, European law, and human rights in a range of international journals including the American Journal of Comparative Law and the Toronto Law Journal, with her article on postwar German constitutionalism winning the inaugural Best Paper Award of the International Journal of Constitutional Law (ICON). She is on the Advisory Board of the International Journal of Constitutional Law (ICON), is a co-editor of Verfassung und Recht in Übersee/World Comparative Law and serves as Co-President for the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S) from 2024-2027.
Mattias Kumm is Inge Rennert professor of law at New York University. His legal scholarship mainly focuses on basic issues and contemporary challenges in Global, European, and Comparative Public Law. Beyond his current affiliations, Kumm has held professorial appointments at Harvard, Yale, and the European University Institute (EUI) among others. He is also founding co-editor in chief of Global Constitutionalism and Jus Cogens. Kumm holds an JSD from Harvard Law School and has pursued studies in law, philosophy, and political sciences at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, and Harvard University.

Comparative constitutionalism emerged in its current form against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. As that backdrop recedes into the past, it is being replaced by a more multi-polar and confusing world, and the current state of the discipline of comparative constitutionalism reflects this fragmentation and uncertainty. This has opened up space for new, more varied, and increasingly critical voices seeking to improve the project of democratic constitutionalism. But it also raises questions: What of the past, if anything, is worth preserving? Which more recent parts should be defining of the field?
In this context, this book asks which are - or should be - the canonical texts of comparative constitutionalism. The theoretical scope of the contributions is broad and ambitious, selecting primary material from beyond the existing textbooks to engage the concept of a canon. This framework provides significant insights about inclusion and exclusion, and proposes candidates for canonical and anti-canonical materials. The result is a wide-ranging discussion, among many voices, of how particular judgments and other primary texts have shaped or should shape our understanding of central elements of democratic constitutionalism from a comparative law perspective. This book is not a prescription of one universal understanding, but a broader conversation about the field and the future of constitutional democracy.