Projects
This page provides more information about selected larger research and editorial projects I have conducted or am still involved with.
Open Constitutional Democracy: Reconciling Deliberation and Constitutional Democracy (3-year research project), with Prof. Michael Pal (University of Ottawa) and Prof. David Vitale (University of Warwick)
Funded by a Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP) grant and by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
For more information about the project, see here.
Abstract: Legislative lobbying – i.e., lobbying that targets the legislative branch – is an ambivalent practice: it can strengthen, but also weaken, democratic law-making. Despite its implications for democratic processes (be they positive or negative), legislative lobbying is neglected and undertheorized in legal and constitutional scholarship. Against this backdrop, this book sheds light on the main constitutional provisions that lobbying laws must take into account. It focuses on four jurisdictions that are particularly relevant to the topic at hand: the United States, which pioneered legislative lobbying regulation in the 1940s, but whose regulatory framework is often criticized for being ineffective; Switzerland, a semi-direct democracy where legislative lobbying is hardly regulated; France, where the law long ignored lobbying as a practice due to the French jacobinist and legicentrist tradition and emphasis on the volonté générale, and which enacted relevant legislation fairly recently, starting in 2016; and, finally, the European Union, one of the biggest lobbying hubs worldwide, which started regulating this practice at the turn of the century, especially after the cash-for-amendments scandal of 2011.
Funded by a Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP) grant and by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
For more information about the project, see here.
Influencing Lawmakers: A Comparative Constitutional Analysis of Legislative Lobbying (monograph)
Habilitation thesis (2024), University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Abstract: Legislative lobbying – i.e., lobbying that targets the legislative branch – is an ambivalent practice: it can strengthen, but also weaken, democratic law-making. Despite its implications for democratic processes (be they positive or negative), legislative lobbying is neglected and undertheorized in legal and constitutional scholarship. Against this backdrop, this book sheds light on the main constitutional provisions that lobbying laws must take into account. It focuses on four jurisdictions that are particularly relevant to the topic at hand: the United States, which pioneered legislative lobbying regulation in the 1940s, but whose regulatory framework is often criticized for being ineffective; Switzerland, a semi-direct democracy where legislative lobbying is hardly regulated; France, where the law long ignored lobbying as a practice due to the French jacobinist and legicentrist tradition and emphasis on the volonté générale, and which enacted relevant legislation fairly recently, starting in 2016; and, finally, the European Union, one of the biggest lobbying hubs worldwide, which started regulating this practice at the turn of the century, especially after the cash-for-amendments scandal of 2011.
AcaMedia: Navigating the Media as Early Career Academics
1-year interdisciplinary projet funded by the Swiss Young Academy, Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences), with Dr des. Aimée Zermatten (co-speaker), Dr Anna Jobin, and Lea Briguet (research assistant) (2024-2025)
This project offers a platform for members of the Swiss Young Academy and other interested researchers to engage in dialogue, discussion, and critical reflection regarding their relation to the media, provide the opportunity for hands-on training, as well as collect and share scientific learnings and personal experiences gained on these systemic issues. It includes a two-day media training retreat that will take place on 24-25 January 2025 in Bern.
Who Gets Heard? Selecting Scientific Experts in Swiss Legislative Processes
3-year interdisciplinary projet funded by the Swiss Young Academy, Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences), with Dr Silvia Maier (co-speaker), Servan Grüninger, Darius Farman, and Reja Wyss (research assistant) (2020-2023)
Our interdisciplinary project group of the Swiss Young Academy focused on the hearings conducted by the parliamentary committees and held interviews with parliamentarians, members of the parliamentary services, and scientific experts. We examined how parliamentary committees select and hold hearings with scientific experts, and the main challenges that arise in this context. The goal was to assess the transparency, representativeness, and equality of access of the expert selection process, as well as possible obstacles and solutions for considering expertise from a variety of scientific disciplines. At the end of the project, in June 2023, we published a synthesis of our findings in a white paper, which is available in French, German, and English on the following webpage.
Online Commentary of the Swiss Constitution (open access commentary), co-edited with Dr Stefan Schlegel
The Onlinekommentar (Online Commentary), founded by Daniel Brugger, law clerk at the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, is the first non-profit and open access platform for legal commentaries in Switzerland. My colleague Dr Stefan Schegel and I are the co-editors of the Online Commentary of the Swiss Constitution. Contributions are published on a rolling basis, following several rounds of editorial review and a double-blind, external peer review process. For more information about this project and to access the commentary, click here. In 2023, Stefan Schlegel and I wrote a blog post published by the Verfassungsblog that presents our project, and that reflects upon the implications of this open access project for legal and especially constitutional commentaries as a genre of legal scholarship.
Domestic Courts and the Interpretation of International Law: Methods and Reasoning Based on the Swiss Example (monograph)
PhD thesis, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, under the supervision of Prof. Samantha Besson.
Published as a monograph in 2019 (Brill/Nijhoff), available as an open access publication here.
Winner of the Walther Hug Prize 2021.
Abstract: In Domestic Courts and the Interpretation of International Law, Odile Ammann examines how domestic judges do and must interpret international law. She analyzes their interpretative methodology and the predictability, clarity, and consistency of their reasoning. Highlighting the main gaps in contemporary international legal scholarship regarding international law in domestic courts, Ammann offers a fresh and thorough theoretical reflection on this topic. Based on a detailed study of the judicial practice, she shows how courts' interpretative method and reasoning can be further improved. She also argues that interpretative methods must be taken more seriously in international law. While she primarily uses the Swiss example to illustrate her claims, the basic tenets of her analysis apply to any domestic legal context.
Cover illustration (below): © Rae Pozdro (for more work by Rae Pozdro, see here).
PhD thesis, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, under the supervision of Prof. Samantha Besson.
Published as a monograph in 2019 (Brill/Nijhoff), available as an open access publication here.
Winner of the Walther Hug Prize 2021.
Abstract: In Domestic Courts and the Interpretation of International Law, Odile Ammann examines how domestic judges do and must interpret international law. She analyzes their interpretative methodology and the predictability, clarity, and consistency of their reasoning. Highlighting the main gaps in contemporary international legal scholarship regarding international law in domestic courts, Ammann offers a fresh and thorough theoretical reflection on this topic. Based on a detailed study of the judicial practice, she shows how courts' interpretative method and reasoning can be further improved. She also argues that interpretative methods must be taken more seriously in international law. While she primarily uses the Swiss example to illustrate her claims, the basic tenets of her analysis apply to any domestic legal context.
Cover illustration (below): © Rae Pozdro (for more work by Rae Pozdro, see here).
