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The Holy Trinity of International Legal Debate

Review products

TsagouriasNicholas (ed.), Transnational Constitutionalism: International and European Perspectives, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007, 377 pp., ISBN 13978052187204.
DunoffJeffrey L. and TrachtmanJoel P. (eds.), Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009, 414 pp., ISBN 9780521514392.
KlabbersJan, PetersAnne, and UlfsteinGeir, The Constitutionalization of International Law, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, 393 pp., ISBN 9780199532427.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

CHRISTINE E. J. SCHWÖBEL
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Extract

‘Fragmentation, verticalization, and constitutionalization form the holy trinity of international legal debate in the early 21st century’ – such is the opening phrase of Jan Klabbers's first chapter in his co-authored book, The Constitutionalization of International Law. Although Klabbers possibly did not intend it, by invoking the ‘holy trinity’, he is calling attention to an important aspect of the contemporary constitutionalist debate, namely what I would like to describe as the faith in constitutionalism as a secular religion. It is from this perspective – the complete and unquestioning belief in constitutionalism – that I will explore global constitutionalism and the three books that are the object of this review.

Type
REVIEW ESSAY
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 1035 - 1056
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2011

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References

1 Evans, M. D., ‘Foreword’, in Tsagourias, N. (ed.), Transnational Constitutionalism: International and European Perspectives (2007)Google Scholar (hereafter, Transnational Constitutionalism), ix.

2 Presidency Conclusions, Brussels European Council (21–22 June 2007), 11177/1/07 Rev. 1 Conc. 2. Taken from Walker, N., ‘Reframing EU Constitutionalism’, in Dunoff, J. L. and Trachtman, J. P. (eds.), Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance (2009), 149CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter, Ruling the World?).

3 Klabbers, J., ‘Setting the Scene’, in Klabbers, J., Peters, A., and Ulfstein, G. (eds.), The Constitutionalization of International Law (2009), 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter, Constitutionalization).

4 A. L. Paulus, ‘The International Legal System as a Constitution’, in Ruling the World?, supra note 2, at 109.

5 N. Tsagourias, ‘Introduction – Constitutionalism: A Theoretical Roadmap’, in Transnational Constitutionalism, supra note 1, at 3.

6 Ibid., at 5.

7 Peter Lindseth's recent book, Power and Legitimacy: Reconciling Europe and the Nation-State (2010), could bear witness to this trend. He argues that the European Union should be understood as an administrative rather than a constitutionalist project.

8 See, e.g., M. W. Doyle, ‘The UN Charter: A Global Constitution?’, in Ruling the World?, supra note 2, at 131.

9 Bardo Fassbender, in his chapter on ‘The Meaning of International Constitutional Law’, states that international constitutionalism is a sub-discipline of public international law – a law that is ‘standing on its own feet’ in relation to public international law, in B. Fassbender, ‘The Meaning of International Constitutional Law’, in Transnational Constitutionalism, supra note 1, at 308.

10 M. Kumm, ‘The Cosmopolitan Turn in Constitutionalism: On the Relationship between Constitutionalism In and Beyond the State’, in Ruling the World?, supra note 2, at 258–324.

11 J. L. Dunoff and J. P. Trachtman, ‘A Functional Approach to International Constitutionalization’, in Ruling the World?, supra note 2, at 3–35.

12 C. E. J. Schwöbel, Global Constitutionalism in International Legal Perspective (2011); Schwöbel, C. E. J., ‘Situating the Debate on Global Constitutionalism’, (2010) 8 International Journal of Constitutional Law 611–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Teubner, G., ‘Societal Constitutionalism: Alternatives to State-Centred Constitutional Theory?’, in Joerges, C., Sand, I.-J., and Teubner, G. (eds.), Transnational Governance and Constitutionalism (2004), 8Google Scholar.

14 A. Skordas, ‘Self-Determination of Peoples and Transnational Regimes: A Foundational Principle of Global Governance’, in Transnational Constitutionalism, supra note 1, at 207, 208, 237.

15 Teubner, G., ‘Globale Zivilverfassungen: Alternativen zur staatszentrierten Verfassungstheorie’, (2003) 63 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 6Google Scholar.

16 See Fassbender, B., ‘The United Nations Charter as Constitution of the International Community’, (1998) 36 Col. JTL 546ffGoogle Scholar.

17 B. Fassbender, ‘Rediscovering a Forgotten Constitution: Notes on the Place of the UN Charter in the International Legal Order’, in Ruling the World?, supra note 2, at 133–47.

18 S. Gardbaum, ‘Human Rights and International Constitutionalism’, in Ruling the World?, supra note 2, at 233–57.

19 Paulus, supra note 4, at 90.

20 The disparity of approaches is freely acknowledged in the Foreword by Evans, supra note 1, at x.

21 W. Werner, ‘The Never-Ending Closure: Constitutionalism and International Law’, in Transnational Constitutionalism, supra note 1, at 329–67.

22 Ibid., at 330.

23 P. Capps, ‘The Rejection of the Universal State’, in Transnational Constitutionalism, supra note 1, at 43.

24 In his monograph, Human Dignity and the Foundations of International Law (2009), P. Capps sets out to do precisely this – to advance comprehensive foundations for international law within a Kantian philosophical tradition.

25 Ibid.

26 P. Eleftheriadis, ‘The Standing of States in the European Union’, in Transnational Constitutionalism, supra note 1, at 46.

27 Ibid., at 70.

28 Fassbender, supra note 9, at 325.

29 Ibid., at 322–5.

30 T. M. Frank, ‘Preface: International Institutions: Why Constitutionalize?’, in Ruling the World?, supra note 2, at xiv.

31 Dunoff and Trachtman, supra note 11, at 5–9.

32 Ibid., at 5.

33 D. Kennedy, ‘The Mystery of Global Governance’, in Ruling the World?, supra note 2, at 38.

34 Ibid., at 63.

35 Paulus, supra note 4, at 72.

36 Ibid., at 92.

37 For an in-depth discussion, see Schwöbel, Global Constitutionalism in International Legal Perspective, supra note 12.

38 Kumm, supra note 10.

39 D. Halberstam, ‘Constitutional Heterarchy’, in Ruling the World?, supra note 2, at 331.

40 Klabbers, supra note 3, at 4.

41 Ibid., at 31.

42 J. Klabbers, ‘Law-Making and Constitutionalism’, in Constitutionalization, supra note 3, at 111, with reference to B. Z. Tamanaha, A General Jurisprudence of Law and Society (2001), 167.

43 G. Ulfstein, ‘Institutions and Competences’, in Constitutionalization, supra note 3, at 55.

44 Ulfstein, G., ‘Do We Need a World Court of Human Rights?’, in Engdahl, O. and Wrange, P. (eds.), The Law as It Was the Law as It Should Be (2008)Google Scholar.

45 A. Peters, ‘Membership in the Global Constitutional Community’, in Constitutionalization, supra note 3, at 154.

46 A. Peters, ‘Dual Democracy’, in Constitutionalization, supra note 3, at 264.

47 Kleinlein, T., ‘On Holism, Pluralism, and Democracy: Approaches to Constitutionalism beyond the State’, (2010) 21 EJIL 1075–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 J. Habermas, Der Gespaltene Westen (2004); J. Habermas, The Divided West (translated by Ciaran Cronin) (2006).

49 Habermas, The Divided West, supra note 48, at 116ff.

50 I. Kant, Perpetual Peace (translated by L. White Beck) (1957).

51 Capps, supra note 23.

52 Kant, supra note 50.

53 Ibid., at 12.

54 E. Craig, The Mind of God and the Works of Man (1987).

55 Redding, P., ‘Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’, in Zalta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010)Google Scholar, available online at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/#Rig.

56 See Koskenniemi: ‘For Hegel, the place of God as the Absolute had been taken over by the state, standing over family and civil society’, Koskenniemi, M., ‘What Should International Lawyers Learn from Karl Marx?’, in Marks, S. (ed.), International Law on the Left (2009), at 33Google Scholar.

57 G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Mind (translated by W. Wallace and A. V. Miller) (1971).

58 Fukuyama, F., ‘The End of History?’, (1989) 16 The National Interest 3Google Scholar.

59 Ibid.

60 C. Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (translated by G. Schwab) (1985), 36.

61 Fassbender, supra note 9, at 318.

62 K. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (orig. 1852), available online at www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/.

63 Koskenniemi, supra note 56, at 33.

64 Paulus, supra note 4, at 75.

65 Ibid.

66 Eleftheriadis, supra note 26, at 45.

67 Peters, supra note 45, at 261.

68 Werner, supra note 21, at 342.

69 Paulus, supra note 4, at 70.

70 Werner, supra note 21, at 348.

71 Kennedy, supra note 33, at 40.

72 T. Novitz, ‘Challenges to international and European Corporatism Presented by Deliberative Trends in Governance’, in Transnational Constitutionalism, supra note 1, at 269.

73 Paulus, supra note 4, at 75.

74 Perhaps significantly, another field that does have this anxiety may be parts of Christian theology, which is concerned with the diminution of ‘believers’.

75 Klabbers, supra note 3.

76 See also Kennedy, supra note 33, at 63.

77 Also see Loughlin, M., ‘The Functionalist Style in Public Law’, (2005) 5 University of Toronto Law Journal 361–403CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 K. Marx, Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Collected Works Vol. 3 (1976).

79 Kleinlein, supra note 47.

80 Fassbender, supra note 9, at 312.

81 In a paradoxical turn, I take this terminology from none other than Hegel. Hegel's position on constitutionalism was that formal constitutional instruments are insufficient for society. He maintained that constitutionalism must be organic to the historical situatedness and culture of the particular society. Hegel proposed that, alongside the formal written instruments, expression must be given to the duties and customs of the ethical order (Sittlichkeit) of a people to find this, one must examine the culture and education (Bildung) of a people. G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right (translated by T. M. Knox) (1952). See, for an analysis of this, ButleRitchie, D. T., ‘Organic Constitutionalism: Rousseau, Hegel and the Constitution of Society’, (2005) 6 Journal of Law and Society 36Google Scholar.

82 Dunoff and Trachtman, supra note 11, at 24.

83 Such is one of the main critiques of Fukuyama's vision of the end of history. See Held, D., ‘Liberalism, Marxism, and Democracy’, (1993) 22 Theory and Society 249–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 J. L. Dunoff, ‘The Politics of International Constitutions’, in Ruling the World?, supra note 2, at 202.

85 Ibid., at 204.

86 Walker, supra note 2, at 170.

87 Halberstam, supra note 39, at 336.