#LetsAgree book discussion will take place at the Annual Congress of the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S) in Dublin. The panel will take place in the very first slot of the Congress and will feature a world-class group of constitutional lawyers discussing the broader implications of the Let’s Agree on Poland project.

Monday, 29 June, 9:45
University College Dublin, Sutherland Building
Room L106 — Harty Boardroom

Let’s Agree on Poland asks a difficult and urgent question: what does constitutional democracy require when its challengers are not merely breaking rules, but seeking to refound the constitutional order itself?

The book reframes the rise of the New Right not as a series of episodic violations, but as a revolutionary project directed at elements of constitutional democracy long treated as beyond ordinary political contestation: the rule of law, robust human rights protection, independent institutions, and the basic architecture of liberal democracy. If that diagnosis is right, then the conventional legal response — sanctioning, delegitimizing, and attempting to reverse illiberal change — can itself be understood as counter-revolutionary.

But history suggests that even successful counter-revolutions rarely produce pure restoration. Durable stabilization often requires some form of accommodation. This lesson appears to have been absorbed by mainstream democratic politicians, who are increasingly willing to incorporate parts of the illiberal agenda into their own platforms, especially on immigration, minority protection, and questions of national identity.

The panel will ask what role constitutional lawyers should play in this fraught debate. The aim is not to normalize illiberalism, but to create a serious forum in which the possibilities and limits of constitutional compromise can be openly articulated, challenged, and assessed. Lawyers are especially well placed to weigh competing values, clarify institutional consequences, and identify the costs of different strategies of resistance, restoration, and accommodation.

The discussion will revolve around three broader questions:

Why must lawyers — not only politicians — help frame the debate on constitutional accommodation?
How can legal analysis structure a conversation about compromise without legitimizing attacks on constitutional democracy?

How should we understand the New Right beyond familiar labels such as “authoritarianism” or “populism”?
Is it a symptom of deeper transformations in democratic governance, political economy, and institutional trust that sanctioning alone cannot resolve?

How can constitutional democracies identify and work through unavoidable trade-offs?
What are the moral, functional, and strategic costs of different counter-revolutionary responses, including their long-term effects on democratic institutions?

The panel welcomes critical and dissenting perspectives. Its ambition is not to settle the question of compromise with the New Right, but to make that question unavoidable — and to insist that constitutional lawyers have a responsibility to confront it directly.