The International Legal System as a Constitution

Control by aggregation? Critical reflections on global constitutionalism in the shadow of looming transnational emergency powers

“…In this way, issues of inter‐regime relationships and the transfer of political power are resolved as if re‐examined through constitutional lenses (see also Dunoff & Trachtman, , pp. 6–9; Paulus, , pp. 69–70).…”

“…392–3; cf. Böckenförde, , p. 165; Loughlin, , p. 67; Paulus, , p. 76). On the contrary, as suggested above, the EU's composite constitution turns out to be a reflection of the aggregated powers held by the various constituent regimes of a multilevel political order.…”

Piercing the veil of state sovereignty: How China’s censorship regime into fragmented international law can lead to a butterfly effect

“…191 Thus, a realistic global approach to decision making must always take local factors into account. 197 Therefore, the nature and effectiveness of substantive norms are subject to the interaction between the ideal law and the law in reality, which underlies the 'uncertainty and volatility of international law'. It is certainly a legal ideal to treat the UN Charter as a world constitution, 193 but it is not yet a constitution in the complete sense, 194 despite its laudable effects of conveying the idea of rule of law to governors around the world.…”

The Ambivalent Shadow of the Pre-Wilsonian Rise of International Law

“…153 Meanwhile, the impact of sociological jurisprudence and, later, of legal realism on the tenets of 'classical legal thought' 154 led in the United States that had not joined the the League of Nations, to a different climate than the one prevailing in Europe during what has been defined as the 'foundational period of contemporary international law'. 155 The American pre-war doctrine shall be later decried together with the interwar years' dominant European reconstructive doctrine as part and parcel of a 'legalistic-moralistic approach to international relations' 156 by a post-Second World War influential retrospective realist interpretation that bitterly decried the 'apparently fantastic constructions of a legalism or idealism that had been oblivious to the "realities" of power in the international world'. 157 In the United States, this realist critique contributed to a 'new practical spirit, an orientation to process and policy at once contextual, purposive and functional' 158 which was diagnosed as a cure to the ailments and the abstractly idealised legalism of international law.…”