Law and Constitutional Change

Examines the role that law plays when countries experience a major constitutional upheaval.

David Capper (Edited by), Conor McCormick (Edited by), Norma Dawson (Edited by)

9781009797740, Cambridge University Press & Assessment

Hardback, published 16 October 2025

370 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.708 kg

'This is an excellent collection. The chapters are more than the sum of their (already very impressive) parts. Collectively, they show the renaissance of interest in constitutional history; they highlight its scope, ambition and relevance. Law and Constitutional Change shows that constitutional history no longer resembles what it looked like and what functions it provided in its 19th century heyday. It is no longer one 'top-down' story of progress designed to stabilise and romanticise the status quo. In the hands of the authors of the chapters published here, constitutional history is a number of stories, a plethora of perspectives, that helps shed a light on issues of power, questioning what we know about our constitutional past and by implication our constitutional present. This is a must-read collection whose open access status means that its chapters should find their way to many a reading list, hopefully to inspire the constitutional historians of the future.' Russell Sandberg, Public Law

A collection of some of the best papers presented at the 25th British Legal History Conference at Queen's University Belfast in July 2022, Law and Constitutional Change examines the role that law plays when countries experience a major constitutional upheaval. It examines the interaction of law and politics in history across different legal jurisdictions with different legal traditions. The theme of the conference was 'Law and Constitutional Change' and was inspired by the decade of anniversaries in Ireland (2012–2023) commemorating events from a century ago that began with the Home Rule Crisis and ended with the partition of the country. It studies the changes that occurred at that time in a wider British and Irish as well as international context, with a view to deepening understanding of contemporary debates such as those surrounding Brexit and its longer-term implications. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Editors' introduction David Capper, Conor Mccormick and N. M. Dawson
1. 'Another sort of treason': the troubled home of husband-killing in late-medieval common law Gwen Seabourne
2. The origins of the statute of uses A. J. Hannay
3. Examining the doctrine of art and part in early modern Scotland Stephanie Dropuljic
4. The beginnings of judicial review John Baker, 5. The aspirations of James Stuart Ian Ward
6. A British common law? Public law after the 1707 union between England and Scotland Robert Brett Taylor
7. Quo warranto and the borough office holder 1700–1791 Kevin Costello
8. Land, credit and the constitution: debtor protections and Catholic rights in eighteenth-century Ireland Julia Rudolph
9. Constitutional change, law, and Grattan's parliament Maike Schwiddessen
10. Sir John Ross Bt: the last Lord chancellor of Ireland 1921–1922 Richard McBride
11. Lord Birkenhead, ambiguity and the Irish border: lawyers and the Anglo-Irish treaty Colum Kenny
12. The British-Irish negotiations on the drafting of the 1922 constitution of the Irish Free State Thomas Mohr
13. No way to run a railroad: the decline of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland after partition C. R. G. Murray
14. Fortuna fortes Adiuvat: the importance of individuals in Estonian constitutional change Merike Ristikivi, Katre Luhamaa and Karin Sein
15. First nations constitutional recognition in Australia: addressing foundational failures of rule of law Gabrielle Appleby and Megan Davis
16. The rise and fall of the UK Human Rights Act Brenda Hale
17. Courting the past: reconstructing Ireland's lost legal records, c.1300–1922 Peter Crooks, Timothy Murtagh and Ciarán Wallace with Joel Herman
Index.

Subject Areas: Constitutional & administrative law [LND]