The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, in cooperation with the Arab Organization for Constitutional Law, will be holding its ninth annual conference on democracy and democratic transition issues September 24-30, 2020. This year's conference is organized via Zoom video conferencing. The conference will be broadcast through the Arab Center’s social media platforms, allowing the public to follow the proceedings.

Abdel-Fattah Mady, conference coordinator and supervisor of the Arab Center’s Democratic Transformation Project, has structured this ninth session of the conference to feature the combination of new research with a review of Arab and international experience, proceeding on two tracks: one, of academic sessions featuring refereed research papers covering Arab and international cases in the field of constitutional transformation; and another, aimed at getting acquainted with direct experience of work undertaken on the constitutional issue and its role in building a democratic state – in the form of discussion sessions including Arab participants in constitutional transformations in Arab countries who have expertise as members of constitution drafting committees, or as advisors to such. These sessions will also include international experts from the United States, Sweden, Scotland, Switzerland, Germany, France and Chile, who, in addition to Arab experience, can provide the Arab world with comparative international experience in the field from which the Arab world might derive useful insights. 

Mady has noted that through its eight previous sessions the conference has become an established Arab academic tradition and is now in fact a high-level forum for researchers concerned with issues of democracy in the Arab region; the importance of this year's conference stems from the priority given to constitutions in the turbulent transformations witnessed in countries of the “first wave” of Arab Spring revolutions – transformations continuing with the new wave of revolutions in Sudan and Algeria and where constitutional transformation lies at the heart of both, with constitutional issues more than likely to be key to any new political and social contract.

All those wishing to participate in the conference sessions, be they specialists, researchers, academics, or the general public, are invited to register to do so next week via the Arab Center’s website.