The Role of State Constitutions in Protecting ... - International IDEA

About the Authors
About the Authors
Otive Igbuzor is a Programme Co-ordinator of Centre for Democracy & Development
(CDD), an independent research, information and training institution dedicated to
policy-oriented scholarship on questions of democratic development and peace building
in the West African sub-region. He also serves as the Secretary of Citizens Forum for
Constitutional Reform (CFCR), a coalition of over one hundred civil society
organizations committed to a process led and participatory approach to constitutional
reform in Nigeria. Previously he was a lecturer at the Delta State University and has
published many scholarly articles on democracy, health, gender, politics and development,
and is currently completing his doctorate degree in Public Administration specializing in
Policy Analysis. He also holds a degree in pharmacy. He was a founding and leading
member of many human rights and mass democratic organizations in Nigeria in the
1980s and ‘90s.
Cheryl Saunders holds a personal chair in law at the University of Melbourne and is a
Director of the Institute for Comparative and International Law and the Centre for
Comparative Constitutional Studies. She has specialist research interests in constitutionmaking
and design, federalism, intergovernmental relations and comparative
constitutional law. From 1991-2000 she was Deputy Chair of the Australian
Constitutional Centenary Foundation, established to assist broad public understanding of
the Australian constitutional system and encourage public involvement in constitutional
debate. Other positions that she presently holds include first Vice-President, International
Association of Constitutional Law and Vice-President, International Association of
Centres for Federal Studies. In 1994 she was appointed an Officer in the Order of
Australia, for services to the law and to public administration.
Yogendra Yadav is the Director of the Institute for Comparative Democracy Lokniti, a
research program of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi.
Previously, Mr. Yadav taught political science at Punjab University, Chandigarh. He has
written a series of academic papers on democratic politics and socialist discourse in
modern India. He also conducts live, nationwide television broadcasts on vote-counting
during major elections in India. He writes regularly in Hindi and is on the editorial board
of the political magazine Samayik Varta. He is also coordinating South-South Exchange
Programme on Democracy and Diversity; a programme of academic exchange between
West African and South Asian scholars.
Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe is an activist and advisor of the United Nationalities League for
Democracy (UNLD), the Shan Democratic Union, the National Reconciliation Program
(NRP), and Technical Assistance Network (TAN). He works with the various political
fronts and organizations of Burma's democratic movement. After serving as a leader of the
Shan resistance movement, including 14 years as a commanding officer in the field with
the Shan State Army, he earned a Ph.D. in political science at the University of British
Columbia. He has taught at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser
University in Vancouver. He has published on Burma, issues of third world nationalism
and development, and on modern social and political theory.
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