Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T00:57:55.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Implications of contested multilateralism for global constitutionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2016

ANDREAS FOLLESDAL
ANDREAS FOLLESDAL*
Affiliation:
PluriCourts, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, PO Box 6706, St Olavs plass 5, 0130 Oslo, Norway
*
*Email: andreas.follesdal@jus.uio.no
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

The article considers implications of contested multilateralism for the processes and normative standards of global constitutionalism. The focus is primarily on aspects of CM regarded as a mode of constitutional change, considering what to make of such a form of ‘extra-constitutional’ procedure. Research challenges for political science, law and normative political theory are identified. Challenges by CM to the stability of international law are argued to be overdrawn. Of greater concern is that CM lends itself to piecemeal adjustments rather than reforms with an eye to the systemic effects. However, these worries must be tempered by the non-ideal nature of the present legal structure which should make us wary of imposing normative standards drawn from settings where institutions are fully just and generally complied with.

Keywords

constitutional changecontested multilateralismglobal constitutionalismnon-ideal theorypolitical theory
Type
Special Articles
Information
Global Constitutionalism , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , November 2016 , pp. 297 - 308
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Morse, JC and Keohane, RO, ‘Contested Multilateralism’ (2014) 9(4) The Review of International Organizations 385, 393.Google Scholar

2 For helpful overviews, cf. Peters, A, ‘Global Constitutionalism’ in The Encyclopedia of Political Thought (John Wiley, 2014).Google Scholar

3 E.g. Elkins, Z et al., The Endurance of National Constitutions (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009).Google Scholar

4 Other tasks or taxonomies are found in Dunoff, JL and Trachtman, JP, ‘A Functional Approach to International Constitutionalization’ in Dunoff, JL and Trachtman, JP (eds), Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009) 3;Google Scholar Elkins, Z, Ginsburg, T and Melton, J, The Endurance of National Constitutions (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009);Google Scholar D Halberstam, ‘Constitutional Heterarchy: The Centrality of Conflict in the United States and Europe’ in Dunoff and Trachtman, Ruling the World? ibid, 326.

5 On human rights, cf. Beitz, CR, The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009)Google Scholar vs Griffin, J, ‘Human Rights and the Autonomy of International Law’ in Besson, S and Tasioulas, J (eds), The Philosophy of International Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010) 339Google Scholar and Tasioulas, J, ‘Human Rights, Legitimacy and International Law’ (2013) 58 American Journal of Jurisprudence 1Google Scholar. On rule of law, cf. Crawford, J, ‘International Law and the Rule of Law’ (2003) 24 Adelaide Law Review 3Google Scholar; Waldron, J, ‘The Rule of International Law’ (2006) 30 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 15Google Scholar; S Beaulac, ‘An Inquiry into the International Rule of Law’ (2007) EUI Working Paper No. 2007/14; Krygier, M, ‘Four Puzzles about the Rule of Law’ in Fleming, JE (ed), Getting to the Rule of Law (New York University Press, New York, NY, 2011) 64.Google Scholar

6 Waluchow, W, ‘Constitutionalism’ (2012) available at <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/constitutionalism/>>Google Scholar.

7 Weiler, J and Wind, M, ‘Introduction’ in Weiler, J and Wind, M (eds), European Constitutionalism Beyond the State (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003) 3;Google Scholar cited in Peters, A, ‘Compensatory Constitutionalism: The Function and Potential of Fundamental International Norms and Structures’ (2006) 19 Leiden Journal of International Law 579Google Scholar.

8 Kumm, M, ‘Constitutional Democracy Encounters International Law: Terms of Engagement’ in Choudhry, S (ed), The Migration of Constitutional Ideas (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007) 256.Google Scholar

9 Pace Koskenniemi, e.g. Koskenniemi, M, ‘International Law: Constitutionalism, Managerialism and the Ethos of Legal Education’ (2007) 1(1) European Journal of Legal Studies 1Google Scholar.

10 Cf. Peters (n 2).

11 de Wet, E and Vidmar, J (eds), Hierarchy in International Law: The Place of Human Rights (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012).Google Scholar

12 M Kumm, ‘The Cosmopolitan Turn in Constitutionalism: On the Relationship between Constitutionalism in and beyond the State’ in Dunoff and Trachtman, Ruling the World? (n 4) 257.

13 Dunoff, JL and Trachtman, JP, ‘A Functional Approach to International Constitutionalization’ in Dunoff and Trachtman, Ruling the World? (n 4) 3, 4Google Scholar.

14 Pace Koskenniemi, ‘International Law’ (n 9).

15 Feichtner, I, The Law and Politics of WTO Waivers: Stability and Flexibility in Public International Law (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011);Google Scholar RL Howse and C Nicolaidis, ‘Enhancing WTO Legitimacy: Constitutionalization or Global Subsidiarity? (2003) 16(1) Governance 73.

16 Koskenniemi, ‘International Law’ (n 9).

17 MacCormick, N, Questioning Sovereignty: Law, State, and Nation in the European Commonwealth (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999) 104.Google Scholar

18 Walker, N, ‘Human Rights in a Postnational Order: Reconciling Political and Constitutional Pluralism’ in Campbell, T, Ewing, KD and Tomkins, A (eds), Skeptical Essays on Human Rights (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001) 119.Google Scholar

19 Koskenniemi, ‘International Law’ (n 9).

20 I am grateful to Geir Ulfstein for this point.

21 Luce, RD and Raiffa, H, Games and Decisions (Wiley, New York, NY, 1957)Google Scholar; Hasenclever, A, Mayer, P and Rittberger, V, Theories of International Regimes (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997)Google Scholar; Pettit, P, ‘Democracy: Electoral and Contestatory’ in Shapiro, I and Macedo, S (eds), Designing Democratic Institutions (New York University Press, New York, NY, 2000) 104Google Scholar.

22 For normative arguments concerning the legitimacy of the ‘club method’ of treaty making compared to the ‘universal method,’ cf. T Christiano, ‘Climate Change and State Consent’ in Moss, J (ed), Climate Change and Justice (2015) 17, 18–22Google Scholar.

23 Mégret, F, ‘Civil Disobedience and International Law: Sketch for a Theoretical Argument’ (2008) 46 Canadian Yearbook of International Law 143Google Scholar; Allen, M, ‘Civil Disobedience, International’ in Chatterjee, D (ed), Encyclopedia of Global Justice (Springer, Amsterdam, 2011) 133–5;Google Scholar Franck, TM, ‘Lessons of Kosovo’ (1999) 93 American Journal of International Law 857–60Google Scholar; Buchanan, A, ‘From Nuremburg to Kosovo: The Morality of Illegal International Legal Reform’ (2001) 111 Ethics 673Google Scholar; Follesdal, A, ‘Law Making by Law Breaking? A Theory of Parliamentary Civil Disobedience against International Human Rights Courts’ in Saul, M (ed), The International Human Rights Judiciary and National Parliaments: Europe and Beyond (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

24 A fruitful starting point is Jupille, J, Mattli, W and Snidal, D, Institutional Choice and Global Commerce (Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2013)Google Scholar especially J Jupille and D Snidal, ‘The Choice of International Institutions: Cooperation, Alternatives and Strategies’ 19. I owe this reference to Jeffrey Dunoff.

25 Cf. Christiano, ‘Climate Change and State Consent’ (n 22) 25–8, 34–8.

26 Rawls, J, A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1971)Google Scholar 363ff.

27 Caney, S, Justice beyond Borders (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005);Google Scholar Pogge, TW, World Poverty and Human Rights (2nd edn, Polity, Oxford, 2008);Google Scholar Ignatieff, M, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2001);Google Scholar Cohen, J, ‘Minimalism about Human Rights: The Most We Can Hope For?’ (2004) 12(2) Journal of Political Philosophy 190Google Scholar; Follesdal, A, ‘The Distributive Justice of a Global Basic Structure: A Category Mistake?’ (2011) 10(1) Politics, Philosophy and Economics 46Google Scholar.

28 Follesdal, A, ‘Democratic Standards in an Asymmetric Union’ in Cramme, O and Hobolt, SB (eds), Democratic Politics in a European Union under Stress (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014) 199.Google Scholar