Amos Jones

Amos Jones

U.S. Fulbright Postgraduate Scholar

Media Profile

“Australia is facing deep cultural conflict over same-sex marriages, religious influences on policy and whether to add a bill of rights to the constitution. Post-modern constitutional lawmaking plays a dynamic role in seeing Australia through these complex relations.”

Amos Jones is one of twelve Americans to be granted a Fulbright Postgraduate Award in 2006. He will study at the School of Law, University of Melbourne researching the roles played by culture, media, politics and religion in post-modern constitutional lawmaking.

Amos earned a Doctor of Laws from Harvard Law School, a Masters of Science in Journalism from Columbia University and Bachelor of Arts in political science from Emory University.  He is the former Executive Editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal and the Harvard BlackLetter Law Journal. In Australia, Amos will be based at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies producing a thesis titled “Cultural Wars and Constitutions in 2006: Australia and the United States Compared”.

The Australian Constitution defines the Australian system of national government and establishes the legal basis for Federal Parliament to make laws. The Constitution can be changed only by a referendum - that is, by asking all eligible electors if they approve of the proposed law to change the Constitution. Since Federation there have been 42 proposals for constitutional change but only eight proposals have received the 'double majority' required to be passed. 

“The similarities between the re-election of Prime Minister John Howard and President Bush are comparable when considering the perceived influence of religious voters,” Amos explained. “Australia serves as an excellent laboratory for studying the roles of culture, media, politics and religion in post-modern constitutional lawmaking. I will investigate how these societal components will influence the complex relationships among Australia’s leading institutions.”

Amos aims to assess the interdependence of popular culture, religion and mass media as they influence the establishment of civil and human rights in the foreign realm of Australia. He hopes his thesis will contribute to the development of theories of process that could be useful among other nations conceptualising rights.