This study is an analytical account of the phenomenon of conflicts of rights, tailored to the context of international human rights law. It addresses the nature of conflicts of rights, the relationship between conflicts of rights and the extent and scope of the rights catalogue and the methods used to resolve conflicts. It is structured around the notion of a meta-rule. It argues that a conflict of rights can only be resolved ‘legally’ through the application of a rule that guides the decision maker to a solution. The study addresses the suitability and justification of such rules.

This paper explores subsidiarity as a constitutional principle in international law. Some authors have appealed to a principle of subsidiarity in order to defend the legitimacy of several striking features of international law, such as the centrality of state consent, the leeway in assessing state compliance and weak sanctions in its absence. The article presents such defences of state-centric aspects of international law by appeals to subsidiarity, and finds them wanting. Different interpretations of subsidiarity have strikingly different institutional implications regarding the objectives of the polity, the domain and role of subunits, and the allocation of authority to apply the principle of subsidiarity itself. Five different interpretations are explored, drawn from Althusius, the US federalists, Pope Leo XIII, and others. One upshot is that the principle of subsidiarity cannot provide normative legitimacy to the state-centric aspects of current international law on its own. It stands in need of substantial interpretation. The versions of subsidiarity that match current practices of public international law are questionable. Many crucial aspects of our legal order must be reconsidered – in particular the standing and scope of state sovereignty.

Debates about ‘constitutionalism’ have become an important trend in WTO scholarship. Despite over two decades of interest, however, a coherent definition of the term and its content remain out of reach. This paper argues that ‘constitutionalism’ should be approached not as something that can be measured or assessed empirically, but rather as a ‘discursive contest’: a debate in which participants intervene on behalf of particular understandings of how the system does or should operate. Approaching constitutionalism as a discursive contest adds to the literature by shifting the focus to an analysis of how ‘constitutional talk’ produces knowledge about the WTO, and how this knowledge in turn structures perceptions about the way government works and the possibilities for action. Providing examples from scholarly debates and WTO practice, the article aims to make concrete the relationship between truth and government and the implications of discursive contests over constitutionalism in the field of WTO law.

According to Carl Schmitt, constitutional law and international law are analogous in that they are both forms of political law. Schmitt concludes that neither is open to legitimate judicial enforcement. This paper critically explores Schmitt’s analogy between constitutional and international law. It argues that the analogy can be turned against Schmitt and contemporary sceptics about international law: Since we no longer have any reason to deny the judicial enforceability of domestic constitutional law, the analogy now suggests that there is no reason to think that legitimate judicial enforcement of international law is impossible.

This paper analyses the mutual influence and self-perpetuating cycle of legitimacy of EU legal scholars and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in expanding and broadening the free movement rights of Union citizens and their family members. It is argued that legal scholars have played a dual role in promoting the constitutional paradigm of an ever-expanding scope of directly enforceable residence and movement rights in the EU. First, by presenting the expansion of free movement rights as an inevitable outcome of the EU constitutional order based on directly enforceable individual rights, scholars have played a significant role in legitimizing the jurisprudence of the Court in the face of initial resistance from the member states. Second, legal scholars have been an important source for the Court of Justice in developing its case law in this area. The Advocates General in their opinions have drawn on an expanding field of scholarship presenting the expansion of free movement rights as an inherent feature of the EU as a constitutional legal order. Spurred by the objective of turning the EU into more than an internal market, the opinions of the Advocates General have mostly been followed by the Court. Legal scholars have thus served not only as a legitimizing force, but also as a source of inspiration for the perceived constitutionalization of free movement rights in the EU.