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Dinesha Samararatne

Dinesha Samararatne is a Professor at the Department of Public & International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka where she has been working as an academic since 2005. Dinesha is a Senior Fellow of the Melbourne Law School, Australia and Editor of the University of Colombo Review. In 2023 she was appointed as an independent expert to the Constitutional Council of Sri Lanka. Her research interests include judicial review, public participation in constitution-making, constitutional resilience, women and constitutional law, guarantor institutions and the relevance of the global south in comparative constitutional law. Her research work has been published with the Hong Kong Law Journal, the Indian Law Review, the World Comparative Law Journal, the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies and the Asian Journal of Comparative Law. She has published three co-edited volumes Democratic Consolidation & Constitutional Endurance Comparing Uneven Pathways of Constitutional Development in Asia and Africa coedited with Tom Daly with Oxford University Press in 2024, Constitutional Resilience Beyond Courts: Views from South Asia co-edited with Swati Jhaveri and Tarunabh Khaitan published with Hart in 2023 and Women with Disabilities as Agents of Peace, Change and Rights co-edited with Karen Soldatic and published with Routledge in 2020. She was an honorary visiting fellow at, Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris 1 University, France (2023), a postdoctoral fellow at the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Australia (2019 – 20), a Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visting Fellow at the Melbourne Law School (2018) and a Junior Fulbright Scholar (2008-09).  She won the Vice Chancellor’s Research Award for Law in 2021, the CVCD Excellence Award for the Most Outstanding Young Researcher in 2020 for the fields of Management and Law and the Senate Award for research (2019 and 2023, 2024).

Qualifications, Fellowships and Certifications

  • October 2023

    Honorary Visiting Fellow

    Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris 1 University, France

  • March 2021 – 2023

    Senior Research Associate

    Laureate Program in Comparative Constitutional Law, Melbourne Law School

  • 2019-2020

    Postdoctoral Fellow

    Laureate Program in Comparative Constitutional Law, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Australia

  • April – May 2018

    Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellow

    Laureate Program in Comparative Constitutional Law, Melbourne Law School

  • PhD 2015

    Doctor of Philosophy

    University of Colombo, Sri Lanka

  • LL.M 2009

    Master of Law

    Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, USA

  • LLB (Hons) 2005

    Degree of Bachelor of Law

    Faculty of Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka

  • Attorney-at-Law 2006

    Admitted and enrolled as an Attorney-at-Law

    Supreme Court of Sri Lanka

  • Certificate 2017

    Certificate of Accreditation of Senior Teachers in Higher Education

    SEDA (Staff and Educational Development Association, UK) accreditation, Staff Development Centre of the University of Colombo

  • CTHE 2008

    Certificate of Teaching in Higher Education

    with SEDA (Staff and Educational Development Association, UK) accreditation, Staff Development Centre of the University of Colombo

  • PresentMarch, 2023

    Editor, University of Colombo Review

  • PresentJanuary 2023

    Member, Constitutional Council of Sri Lanka

  • December 2023October 2021

    Director, Career Guidance Unit, Faculty of Law

  • 20232021

    Guest Editor, Journal of Comparative Constitutional Studies (Special Issue on Methodologies)

  • 20222022

    Guest Editor, University of Colombo Review (Special Issue on Equity)

  • Present2020

    Articles Editor

    Indian Law Review

  • 2021 2019

    Postdoctoral Fellow

    Laureate Program in Comparative Constitutional Law, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Australia.

  • 2021 2011

    Senior Lecturer

    Faculty of law, University of Colombo

  • 20182016

    Member

    Steering Committee, Centre for Gender Equality, University of Colombo

  • 20182015

    Member

    Management Committee of the Centre for Excellence in Disability Research Education and Practice, University of Colombo

  • 20182016

    Senior Advisor

    Legal Aid Unit, Faculty of Law

  • 20182016

    Legal Advisor

    Newsletter of the University of Colombo