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Recent war powers debates have seen the emergence of two opposing viewpoints. Those who advocate close adherence to the Constitution and who assume congressional predominance in matters of war have squared off against those who point to modern political realities that require presidential independence and power. This article argues that the resulting interpretive dichotomy is both false and unnecessary. The Constitution created a vigorous executive in the conduct of foreign affairs, checked and balanced by an equally powerful Congress. This is borne out by analysis of the language of the Constitution, by an examination of its intent, and by judicial doctrine. An additional method of interpretation, structural argument, integrates text, intent, and doctrine and provides a theoretically sound and politically feasible framework for the exercise of the war power by the political branches.

The human rights movement has spent considerable energy developing and promoting the adoption of both international and domestic legal prohibitions against torture. Empirical scholarship testing the effectiveness of these prohibitions using observational data, however, has produced mixed results. In this paper, we explore one possible mechanism through which these prohibitions may be effective: dampening public support for torture. Specifically, we conducted a survey experiment to explore the impact of international and constitutional law on public support for torture. We found that a bare majority of respondents in our control group support the use of torture, and that presenting respondents with arguments that this practice violates international law or constitutional law did not produce a statistically significant decrease in support. These findings are consistent with prior research suggesting, even in democracies, that legal prohibitions on torture have been ineffective.

This contribution revisits the phenomenon of 'reverse discrimination in the light of the latest Treaty amendments, recent developments in the CJEU's case law and evolutions in the law of selected Member States. It follows that 'reverse discrimination' caused by national measures applying to internal situations in non-harmonized policy fields remains acceptable under EU law as a matter of principle. The Union's non-unitary constitutional structure compels the CJEU to exercise judicial restraint when reviewing such rules against the fundamental freedoms of the Treaties as long as the Union legislator does not address the issue. Although the CJEU's traditional and increasingly incoherent case-law on 'purely internal situations' is not a necessary corollary of this reasoning, alternative judicial approaches risk unduly undermining Member States' competences and constitutional identities. Whilst much of the academic debate on reverse discrimination focuses on possible remedies under EU law, this paper also looks at solutions available under national law. Member States are well equipped to address reverse discrimination and to progressively live up to their responsibility in this respect. Evidence from different Member States suggests that national law (subject to an external control of the ECtHR) can provide a valuable and effective tool to assess whether or not restrictions of individual freedoms can be justified by overriding constitutionally recognized principles.

Compares the value orientation of constitutional law and its reliance on principles of natural law and human rights in Germany and the US.