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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 September 2021
This special issue of Global Constitutionalism discusses how global constitutionalism influences Asia-Pacific jurisdictions and how they respond. This introductory article presents the theme and structure of this issue, explains the Asia-Pacific’s unique contribution to global constitutionalism and offers a synthetic argument. It conceptualizes global constitutionalism as the global diffusion of common constitutional ideas, institutions and doctrines rooted in comparative constitutional law and public international law. On that base, it argues that constitutional design, adjudication and discourse in many Asia-Pacific jurisdictions are influenced by global constitutionalism. The influence results in not only convergence but also resistance to global constitutionalism in the regions. The regional experience presents critical challenges for global constitutionalism, and hence its effective operation significantly depends on its situation within the region’s axiological, institutional and social contexts.
1 Antje Wiener et al., ‘Editorial: Global Constitutionalism: Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law’ (2012) 1(1) Global Constitutionalism 1.
2 Michel Rosenfeld, ‘Is Global Constitutionalism Meaningful or Desirable?’ (2014) 25 European Journal of International Law 177.
3 For the global diffusion of constitutionalism, including to Asia and the Pacific, see Albert HY Chen, ‘Constitutions, Constitutional Practice and Constitutionalism in East Asia’ in Christoph Antons (ed), Routledge Handbook of Asian Law (Routledge, London, 2016) 75–93; Jiunn-Rong Yeh and Wen-Chen Chang, ‘The Changing Landscape of Modern Constitutionalism: Transitional Perspective’ (2009) 4(1) National Taiwan University Law Review 145; Venkat Iyer, ‘Restoration Constitutionalism in the South Pacific’ (2006) 15(1) Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal 39; Bruce Ackerman, ‘The Rise of World Constitutionalism’ (1997) 83(4) Virginia Law Review 771.
4 See generally, Lang, Anthony F Jr and Wiener, Antje (eds), Handbook on Global Constitutionalism (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 See, for example, some recent collections: Shinar Adam (ed), Special Issue: ‘The Ideologies of Global Constitutionalism’ (2019) 8(1) Global Constitutionalism 12; Iddo Porat and Gila Stopler (eds), Special Issue: ‘Global Constitutionalism and Human Rights’ (2018) 12(1) Law & Ethics of Human Rights 1.
6 See Cheryl Saunders’ article in this issue.
7 Cheryl Saunders, ‘Towards a Global Constitutional Gene Pool’ (2009) 4(3) National Taiwan University Law Review 1; Wen-Chen Chang, ‘An Isolated Nation with Global-Minded Citizens: Bottom-up Transnational Constitutionalism in Taiwan’ (2009) 4(3) National Taiwan University Law Review 203; Albert HY Chen, ‘International Human Rights Law and Domestic Constitutional Law: Internationalisation of Constitutional Law in Hong Kong’ (2009) 4(3) National Taiwan University Law Review 237; Li-Ann Thio, ‘Reception and Resistance: Globalisation, International Law and the Singapore Constitution’ (2009) 4(3) National Taiwan University Law Review 335.
8 Suami, Takao, Peters, Anne, Vanoverbeke, Dimitri and Kumm, Mattias (eds), Global Constitutionalism from European and East Asian Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 See, for example, David Law and Mila Versteeg, ‘The Evolution and Ideology of Global Constitutionalism’ (2011) 99 California Law Review 1163.
10 See generally Chang, Wen-Chen, Thio, Li-ann, Tan, Kevin YL, Yeh, Jiunn-rong, Constitutionalism in Asia: Cases and Materials (Hart, Oxford, 2014)Google Scholar; Hassall, Graham and Saunders, Cheryl, Asia-Pacific Constitutional Systems (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012)Google Scholar.
11 Wen-Chen Chang and Jiunn‐Rong Yeh, ‘Internationalization of Constitutional Law’ in Michel Rosenfeld and András Sajó (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012) 1169; Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg and Beth Simmons, ‘Getting to Rights: Treaty Ratification, Constitutional Convergence, and Human Rights Practice’ (2013) 54(1) Harvard International Law Journal 61; Mark Tushnet, ‘The Inevitable Globalization of Constitutional Law’ (2009) 49(4) Virginia Journal of International Law 985. For critical discussions, see Rosalind Dixon and Eric Posner, ‘The Limits of Constitutional Convergence’ (2011) 11(2) Chicago Journal of International Law 399.
12 Kim Lane Scheppele, ‘Aspirational and Aversive Constitutionalism: The Case for Studying Cross-constitutional Influence Through Negative Models’ (2003) 1(2) International Journal of Constitutional Law 297.
13 Ibid.
14 Chen, Albert HY, ‘The Achievement of Constitutionalism in Asia’ in Chen, Albert HY (ed) Constitutionalism in Asia in the Early Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014) 1–31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 See, for example, Rogier Creemers, ‘China’s Constitutionalism Debate: Content, Context and Implications’ (2015) 74 The China Journal 91.
16 Benedikt Goderis and Mila Versteeg, ‘The Diffusion of Constitutional Rights’ (2014) 39 International Review of Law & Economics 1; Tom Ginsburg and Mila Versteeg, ‘Why Do Countries Adopt Constitutional Review?’ (2014) 30(3) The Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 587.
17 De Visser Maartje And Son Bui Ngoc, ‘Glocalised Constitution-Making in the Twenty-First Century: Evidence from Asia’ (2019) 8 Global Constitutionalism 297.
18 For small-N case studies, see Hirschl, Ran, Comparative Matters: The Renaissance of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014) 244–45Google Scholar.
19 Larry Cata Backer, ‘Party, People, Government and State: On Constitutional Values and the Legitimacy of the Chinese State-Party Rule of Law System’ 30(2) (2012) Boston University International Law Journal 343. For the constitutional role of the party, see also Xin He, ‘The Party’s Leadership as a Living Constitution in China’ (2012) 42(1) Hong Kong Law Journal 73.
20 James Tully, Jeffrey L Dunoff, Anthony F Lang Jr, Mattias Kumm and Antje Wiener, ‘Introducing Global Integral Constitutionalism’ (2016) 5(1) Global Constitutionalism 2 (italics in original).
21 This view is drawn on Gregory Shaffer’s concept of transnational law, which ‘focuses on the transnational production of legal norms and institutional forms and their migration across borders, regardless of whether they address transnational activities or purely national ones’. Gregory Shaffer, ‘Transnational Legal Process and State Change’ (2012) 37(2) Law & Social Inquiry 234.
22 Jiunn-Rong Yeh and Wen-Chen Chang, ‘The Emergence of Transnational Constitutionalism: Its Features, Challenges and Solutions’ (2008) 27(1) Penn State International Law Review 97.
23 Chen, Albert, ‘The Global Expansion of Constitutional Judicial Review: Some Historical and Comparative Perspectives’, in Festschrift in Honor of Professor Satoru Osanai (Chuo University, Tokyo, 2013) 3–25 Google Scholar; Ginsburg, Tom, ‘The Global Spread of Constitutional Review’ in Whittington, Keith and Keleman, Daniel (eds), Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008) 81–98 Google Scholar.
24 David E Landau, Rosalind Dixon and Yaniv Roznai, ‘From an Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendment to an Unconstitutional Constitution? Lessons from Honduras’ (2019) 8(1) Global Constitutionalism 40; Yaniv Roznai, ‘Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments: The Migration and Success of a Constitutional Idea’ (2013) 61(3) American Journal of Comparative Law 657.
25 Alec Stone Sweet and Jud Mathews, ‘Proportionality Balancing and Global Constitutionalism’ (2008) 47(1) Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 72.
26 See articles in this issue.
27 For discussions on China in the context of global constitutionalism, see Maria Adele Carrai, ‘Global Constitutionalism and Chinese Exceptionalism’ (2016) 21 European University Institute Working Papers 95; Haig Patapan, ‘Towards a Cosmopolitan Constitutionalism: On Universalism and Particularism in Chinese Constitutionalism’ (2015) 3(1) The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law 78.
28 NW Barrber, The Principles of Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018) 77.
29 For recent accounts of constitutional review in East Asia and Southeast Asia, see Chen, Albert HY and Harding, Andrew (eds), Constitutional Courts in Asia: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
30 See Abeyratne’s article in this issue. See also David K Huang and Nigel N Li, ‘Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendment in Taiwan: A Retrospective Analysis of Judicial Yuan Interpretation’ (2020) 499(2000) University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review 421; Low Hong Ping, ‘The Doctrine of Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments in Malaysia’ (2019) 45(2) Journal of Malaysian and Comparative Law 53; Jaclyn L Neo, ‘A Contextual Approach to Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments: Judicial Power and the Basic Structure Doctrine in Malaysia’ (2020) 15(1) Asian Journal of Comparative Law 69–94; Md Ariful Islam Siddiquee, Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments in South Asia: A Study of Constitutional Limits on Parliaments’ Amending Power’ (2015) 35 Journal of Law, Policy and Globalization 64.
31 See Lin’s Article in this issue. See also Alec Stone Sweet and Jud Mathews, ‘Proportionality and Rights Protection in Asia: Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan – Whither Singapore?’ (2017) 29 (Special Issue) Singapore Academy of Law Journal 774; Yap, Po Jen (ed) Proportionality in Asia (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (amended through 2018), Article 33.
33 Vivien A Schmidt, ‘Discursive Institutionalism: The Explanatory Power of Ideas and Discourse’ (2008) 11(1) Annual Review of Political Science 303.
34 Paul J DiMaggio and Walter W Powell, ‘The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields’ (1983) 48(2) American Sociological Review 147.
35 For example, Goderis and Versteeg (n 16) 2 draw on diffusion literature in political science, economics, sociology and geography to identify four mechanisms of diffusions of constitutional rights: coercion, competition, learning and acculturation.
36 For imposed constitutions generally, see Albert, Richard, Contiades, Xenophon and Fotiadou, Alkmene (eds), The Law and Legitimacy of Imposed Constitutions (Routledge, London, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 See Saunders’s article in this issue. For her particular study on this topic, see Saunders, Cheryl, ‘International Involvement in Constitution Making’ in Landau, David and Lerner, Hanna (eds), Comparative Constitution Making (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2019) 59–89 Google Scholar.
38 DiMaggio and Powell (n 34) 151 (internal citation omitted).
39 Kim Lane Scheppele, ‘A Constitution Between Past and Future’ (2008) 49(4) William and Mary Law Review 1377 (internal citations omitted).
40 See generally William Partlett, ‘Restoration Constitution-Making’ (2015) 9(4) Vienna Journal on International Constitutional Law 514.
41 Vicki C Jackson, ‘Transnational Challenges to Constitutional Law: Convergence, Resistance, Engagement’ (2007) 35(2) Federal Law Review 166.
42 DiMaggio and Powell (n 34) 152.
43 See Shin’s article in this issue. See also Maartje De Visser, ‘We All Stand Together: The Role of the Association of Asian Constitutional Courts and Equivalent Institutions in Promoting Constitutionalism’ (2016) 3(1) Asian Journal of Law and Society 105.
44 See <http://aacc-asia.org/en/1/1/profile.aacc>.
45 Ran Hirschl, ‘Opting Out of “Global Constitutionalism”’ (2018) 12(1) Law & Ethics of Human Rights 1.
46 Mounk, Yascha, The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom is in Danger and How to Save It (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2019) 184–85Google Scholar.
47 See, for example, an account on the social movements mobilizing for protection of Article 9. Daiki Shibuichi, ‘The Article 9 Association, Leftist Elites, and the Movement to Save Article 9 of Japan’s Postwar Constitution’ (2017) 34 East Asia 147.
48 Mattias Kumm et al., ‘Editorial: The End of “the West” and the Future of Global Constitutionalism’ (2017) 6(1) Global Constitutionalism 4.
49 For efforts to create ‘indigenous’ models of constitutionalism in Asia (particularly, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore), see Pranoto Iskandar, ‘Indigenizing Constitutionalism: A Critical Reading of Asian Constitutionalism’ (2018) 5(1) Indonesian Journal of International & Comparative Law 3. For comparative experiences in Europe, see Konrad Lachmayer, ‘Counter-developments to Global Constitutionalism’ in Martin Belov (ed), Global Constitutionalism and Its Challenges to Westphalian Constitutional Law (Hart, Oxford, 2018) 81–102.
50 Bui Ngoc Son, ‘The Discourse of Constitutional Review in Vietnam’ (2014) 9(2) Journal of Comparative Law 191.
51 Thio (n 7) 335.
52 For more details, see Jackson, Vicki C, Constitutional Engagement in A Transnational Era (Oxford University Press, New York, 2010) 19–30 Google Scholar.
53 See Seppänen’s article in this issue.
54 See, for example, Jaakko Husa, ‘Global Constitutionalism: Some Critical Remarks’ (2017) 47(1) Hong Kong Law Journal 77 (offering ‘substantive related and methodological critiques’ of global constitutionalism).
55 See Lin’s and Shin’s articles in this issue.
56 Mattias Kumm et al. (n 47) 6.
57 See generally May, James R and Daly, Erin, Global Environmental Constitutionalism (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
58 James Tully et al., ‘Introducing Global Integral Constitutionalism’ (2016) 5(1) Global Constitutionalism 2.
59 Saunders (n 7) 12.
60 Mattias Kumm et al., ‘How Large is the World of Global Constitutionalism?’ (2014) 3(1) Global Constitutionalism 5.
61 This is different from analytical contextualism. On the latter, see the volumes in Hart’s series on Constitutional Systems of the World, available at <https://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/series/constitutional-systems-of-the-world>.
62 Hassall and Saunders (n 10) 42–43.
63 Sungmoon, Kim, Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016) 26 Google Scholar.
64 Larry Cata Backer, ‘A Constitutional Court for China within the Chinese Communist Party: Scientific Development and a Reconsideration of the Institutional Role of the CCP’ (2010) 43(3) Suffolk University Law Review 593.