{"id":317,"date":"2009-04-16T09:11:06","date_gmt":"2009-04-16T13:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/its-cuthemedev1.carleton.ca\/law\/ccms\/?page_id=317"},"modified":"2025-06-27T09:10:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T13:10:05","slug":"balasubramaniam-ratna-rueban","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/law\/people\/balasubramaniam-ratna-rueban\/","title":{"rendered":"Ratna Rueban Balasubramaniam"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \n \n \n <\/h1>\n\n \n <\/header>\n\n\n\n\n\n

On sabbatical: July 1, 2025 \u2013 June 30, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research Interests<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

My current area of research revolves around the theme of authoritarian legalism, especially the role of legal authority in constructing and maintaining structures of political domination as well as the extent to which the law itself could generate critical resources that might be used to critique such structures. My approach to scholarship thus involves the intersection of philosophy of law and political science and generally focuses on \u201chybrid\u201d regimes that simultaneously display both authoritarian and democratic political patterns.  I am presently writing a book about the problem of jurisprudential ideology in the maintenance and resilience of the ethnocratic state that blights the theory and practice of Malaysian constitutional law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Areas of Interest<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • The Rule of Law<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Philosophy of Law<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • States of Emergency or the \u201cException\u201d in Legal Theory<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Unwritten constitutional principles and common law constitutionalism<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Dual State Legality<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Teaching<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    I am a legal philosopher and teach philosophy of law at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition, I also teach international human rights law and human rights and social justice with an emphasis on a jurisprudential perspective about the significant links between legality and the aspiration to protect human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In addition, I have a deep interest in the craft of academic writing and am the co-founder of an education technology platform for academic writing called EssayJack that was acquired in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Selected Publications<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Rueban Balasubramaniam. 2022, \u201cConstitutional Statecraft in Malaysian Courts: A Na\u00efve Schmittian Misappropriation\u201d 17:1 Asian Journal of Comparative Law<\/em> (forthcoming)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    — 2022, \u201cThe Covid-19 Emergency: Malaysia\u2019s Fragile Democracy\u201d in Grogan & McDonald (eds) The Routledge Handbook on Law and the COVID-19 Pandemic <\/em>(Routledge, forthcoming)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    — 2021, \u201cThe Conceptual Case for Law as Integrity in Malaysia\u201d in Matthew McManus (ed) Socialism and Liberalism: Embittered Kin or Mortal Enemies<\/em> (Palgrave)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    — 2018, \u201cMalaysia\u2019s Blocked Social Contract Debate\u201d in Andrew Harding & Dian Shah (eds) Law and Society in Malaysia: Pluralism, Religion, and Ethnicity<\/em> (Routledge)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    — 2018, \u201c Dislodging Malaysia\u2019s Culture of Domination\u201d in Greg Lopez & Bridget Welsh (eds) Regime Resilience in Malaysia and Singapore<\/em> (SIRD)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27564,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cu_people_first_name":"Ratna Rueban","cu_people_last_name":"Balasubramaniam","cu_people_initials":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_people_type":[22],"cu_people_expertise":[],"class_list":["post-317","cu_people","type-cu_people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_people_type-faculty"],"acf":{"cu_people_job_title":"Associate Professor","cu_people_degree":"LL.B. (London), M.Phil. (Australian National University), S.J.D. (Toronto)","cu_building":"","cu_people_office_num":"","cu_people_pronoun":"","cu_people_designation":"","cu_people_email":"rbalasubramaniam@cunet.carleton.ca","cu_people_phone":"613-520-2600","cu_people_phone_ext":"","cu_people_linkedin":"","cu_people_bluesky":"","cu_people_twitter":"","cu_people_instagram":"","cu_people_facebook":"","cu_people_website":"","cu_people_orcid":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_people"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32672,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/317\/revisions\/32672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_people_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_type?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"cu_people_expertise","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_expertise?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}