Date: Wednesday, September 2, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET/1:00 PM – 2:00 PM CT/12:00 PM – 1:00 PM MT/11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PT
In this moderated discussion, attendees will hear an insider’s perspective on work of judging at the highest levels from Carlos Bernal, retired justice of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, former Commissioner of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and now the David Boies Distinguished Chair in Law at Tulane Law School. A pre-eminent scholar of constitutional interpretation, the philosophy of law, comparative constitutional change, and social & economic rights, Justice Bernal has published influential works in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian. Justice Bernal will be in conversation with Professor Richard Albert, Chair of the AALS Section on Constitutional Law. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and make comments. All are welcome!
Carlos Bernal, David Boies Distinguished Chair in Law, Tulane Law School.
Professor Carlos Bernal is the Tulane Law David Boies Distinguished Chair in Law, appointed in 2026. Bernal, a former Justice of Colombia’s Constitutional Court (2017–2020), currently serves as a Commissioner of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the IACHR’s Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for the 2022–2025 term. His selection to the regional human-rights body followed decades of scholarship and service in Latin America, Europe, Australia, and the United States.
In addition, Professor Bernal has held visiting professorships at the Faculties of Law of the Universities of Paris I (Sorbonne) and Paris X (Nanterre), the University of Copenhagen, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University of León (Spain). He has also been a Senior Research Fellow at Yale Law School, King’s College London School of Law, and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg).
Professor Bernal specializes in the interpretation of constitutional rights and comparative constitutional change. His research also focuses on jurisprudence—particularly the intersection of social ontology and legal theory—as well as the philosophical foundations of tort law. His work has appeared in leading peer-reviewed journals and in books and edited collections in English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Russian.
He earned his LL.B. in 1996 from the University Externado of Colombia (Bogotá), an S.J.D. in 2001 from the University of Salamanca (Spain), and an M.A. (2008) and Ph.D. (2011) in Philosophy from the University of Florida (U.S.A.).
The Colombian Government has recognized Professor Bernal with both the Order of Boyacá and the José María Córdova Medal.cky University. She earned her J.D. from the University of Kentucky College of Law.
Richard Albert, Hines H. Baker and Thelma Kelley Baker Chair in Law, Professor of Government, and Director of Constitutional Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
Richard Albert is an expert on constitution-making and constitutional design. An advisor to governments and parliaments on constitutional reform, he has published over 30 books on constitutions, democracy, and the rule of law.
He is a former law clerk to the Chief Justice of Canada, the immediate-past Co-President of the International Society of Public Law, and he was appointed to serve on Jamaica’s 15-person Constitutional Reform Committee. He is currently the Constitutional Advisor to the Constitutional Convention of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Richard Albert holds law and political sciences degrees from Yale, Oxford and Harvard.
