A conference on "Subnational Constitutions and Federalism: Design & Reform" was held on March 22-27, 2004, at the Rockefeller Foundation's conference site in Bellagio, Italy. The conference, which was organized by the Center for State Constitutional Studies at Rutgers University-Camden, had four objectives:

• present to foreign scholars who share an interest in subnational constitutions the best current research on the American experience with state constitutions

• provide American scholars with expert views on subnational constitutionalism in other countries

• stimulate consideration of how the practices and experiences of other countries with regard to subnational constitutions could be adopted in one’s own country

• promote a continuing interchange among scholars and public officials on problems of subnational constitutionalism

In order to institutionalize the “Bellagio Group,” to expand the audience for its deliberations, and to broaden the range of participants in those deliberations, the International Association of Subnational Constitutional Law (IASCL) was formed

Attending the conference were authors who participated in the Center's "State Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century" project, together with representatives from ten other federal democracies. The agenda for the conference is listed below. Click the name of a conference participant below to access his/her contribution.

March 23

Session 1: Rights Guarantees and Subnational Constitutions
Robert Williams, USA
Ted Morton, Canada

Session 2: Federalism, Minorities, and Rights
John White, USA
Josef Marko, Austria

Session 3: Subnational Constitutionalism and Quasi-Constitutionalism in Systems in Transition
Tsegaye Regassa, Ethiopia
Beniamino Caravita, Italy
Luis Moreno, Spain

March 24

Session 1: The Legislative Branch
Michael Libonati, USA
Antonio Hernandez, Argentina

Session 2: The Executive Branch
Thad Beyle, USA
I Sawa Elaigwu, Nigeria

Session 3: The Judicial Branch
Alan Tarr, USA
Ulrich Karpen, Germany

March 25

Session 1: Public Policy & Subnational Constitutions
Barton Thompson, USA
Paul Tractenberg, USA
Allan Brewer-Carias, Venezuela

Session 2: Voting, Elections, and Constitutional Change
Gerald Benjamin, USA
James Gardner, USA
Manuel Gonzalez-Oropeza, Mexico

March 26

Session 1: Local Government
Michael Libonat, USA
Marat Salikov, Russia

Session 2: Taxing, Spending, & Borrowing
Richard Briffaul, USA
Celina Souza, Brazil

Session 3: Future Directions

The International Association of Subnational Constitutional Law (IASCL), which will encourage and disseminate single-country and comparative research on subnational constitutions. The Center for State Constitutional Studies at Rutgers University – Camden will serve as the initial home of the group, and its activities will be publicized in the Center’s Subnational Constitution Chronicle, which is published twice a year and is distributed to more than 400 scholars and public officials worldwide. The group will maintain its own website, linked to the websites of the participants’ organizations and to those of other organizations active in federalism concerns.

The participants agreed to publish the materials prepared for the conference, as well as summaries of the conference proceedings, on the websites of the Center for State Constitutional Studies (www-camlaw.rutgers.edu/statecon/), of the International Association of Subnational Constitutional Law, of the In addition, inquiries have been begun with publishers regarding the desirability of a book using those same materials.