Suri Ratnapala

Suri Ratnapala is the TC Beirne School of Law Professor of Public Law. His expertise is in constitutional law and theory, jurisprudence and institutional economics. Current research efforts are focused on institutional emergence and change and constitutional underpinnings of market economies.

Suri Ratnapala holds the degrees of LLB (Colombo); LLM (Macquarie) and PhD (Qld), and teaches constitutional law and jurisprudence, fields in which he has published widely. Professor Ratnapala’s work has received international acclaim, with his book Welfare State or Constitutional State? being awarded a Sir Anthony Fisher International Memorial Prize by a jury chaired by Nobel Laureate James Buchanan. His latest book, Australian Constitutional Law: Foundations and Theory was published by Oxford University Press in April 2002. He has received fellowships from the prestigious international research centres, the Institute for Humane Affairs, George Mason University, Virginia, the Social Philosophy and Policy Centre of the Bowling Green State University, Ohio and the International Centre for Economic Research, Turin, Italy. In 1998, his work received further recognition when he was elected to the membership of the Mont Pelerin Society, the international grouping of liberal intellectuals. In 2000, he received a John Templeton Foundation Award for his course Advanced Constitutional Law and Theory’, granted ‘on the basis of uniqueness, innovation, and interdisciplinarity and the balance of political, economic and social theory’. In 2003 he was awarded a Centenary of Australian Federation Medal by the Governor-General of Australia for his contribution to Australian society through research in law and economics. Professor Ratnapala has been a consultant with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank in institutional capacity building projects in Asia. Prior to entering the academy he was Senior State Counsel in Sri Lanka. Professor Ratnapala’s main academic interests are in constitutional law and theory, legal philosophy, and constitutional political economy.