Until the end of the Cold War comparative constitutional lawyers and political scientists tended to emphasise the common ground within the North Atlantic region. Today, some even speak of a ‘European-Atlantic constitutional state’. This view was and is perfectly legitimate. It was not only the radically different socialist understanding of law which made western constitutional theories and practices appear to be so similar. This similarity is also firmly grounded in the cross-fertilising constitutional developments between Western Europe and North America which have taken place before and since the eighteenth century.

The end of the socialist systems in Eastern Europe and increasing ‘globalisation’, however, may bring about a change of emphasis from the similarities to the differences between the constitutionalisms in the United States and Europe. Over the past few years issues have emerged which seem to indicate that European constitutional theory and practice is becoming aware that it has developed certain rules and possesses certain properties which are characteristically different from US constitutionalism and vice versa. This new perspective, or rather such a change in emphasis, is likely to be reinforced by political developments which expose discrepancies in the evaluation of fundamental questions between the majority of Europeans on the one hand and the majority of Americans on the other.

This book was conceived before the drama of the latest Iraq crisis unfolded. That crisis has had profound repercussions on transatlantic and intra-European political relationships. It has obviously gone beyond disputes about international law.