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AbstractIn his recent book, Ian Hurd argues that international law is pervasive and foundational in international affairs and that the international rule of law is hegemonic over states. While the book is provocative and compelling, it fails to convince on two core points. First, Hurd does not offer a real alternative to international relations realism. Indeed, the book could unwittingly reinforce the realist stance that international law is simply power politics in disguise. Second, the book offers a problematic conception of international rule of law. What Hurd describes is at best a rule by law, or perhaps more appropriately qualified as a travesty of the rule of law.

Global constitutionalism is an agenda that identifies and advocates for the application of constitutionalist principles in the international legal sphere. Global constitutionalization is the gradual emergence of constitutionalist features in international law. Critics of global constitutionalism doubt the empirical reality of constitutionalization, call into question the analytic value of constitutionalism as an academic approach, and fear that the discourse is normatively dangerous because it is anti-pluralist, artificially creates a false legitimacy, and promises an unrealistic end of politics. This article addresses these objections. I argue that global constitutionalization is likely to compensate for globalization induced constitutionalist deficits on the national level, that a constitutionalist reading of international law can serve as a hermeneutic device, and that the constitutionalist vocabulary uncovers legitimacy deficits of international law and suggests remedies. Global constitutionalism, therefore, has a responsibilizing and much-needed critical potential. ; El constitucionalismo global es una agenda que identifica y defiende la aplicación de principios constitucionalistas en la esfera jurídica internacional. La constitucionalización global supone la aparición gradual de unas características constitucionalistas en el derecho internacional. Las críticas del constitucionalismo global tienden a dudar de la realidad empírica de la constitucionalización, lo que lleva a preguntarse por el valor analítico del constitucionalismo como aproximación académica y a preocuparse por que el discurso pueda ser normativamente peligroso al ser anti pluralista, por crear artificialmente una falsa legitimidad y por prometer unos fines políticos surreales. El presente artículo aborda estas objeciones. Se argumenta que la constitucionalización global podría compensar los déficits constitucionalistas a nivel nacional por la globalización inducida; que una lectura constitucionalista del derecho internacional podría servir como una herramienta hermenéutica, y que el vocabulario constitucionalista destapa los déficits de legitimidad del derecho internacional ofreciendo soluciones. El constitucionalismo global tiene entonces un verdadero y necesario potencial crítico y responsabilizador.

In all major fields of international law—e.g. environmental law, economic law, human rights law, international humanitarian law, health law, peace-and-security law—demands for more transparency have recently been voiced by civil-society actors, by states, and within the international institutions themselves—or transparency has been brought about by illegal means. In response, much more transparency has been created in international institutions and procedures in the last 10 years. This paper diagnoses a genuine "transparency turn" in international law, it analyses the functions and drawbacks of increased transparency in global governance (especially for the well-functioning of negotiations and deliberations); it asks whether a cross-cutting legal principle of transparency is emerging, and what this might mean for international law as a whole. It concludes that from a governance perspective, transparency is only a necessary, and not a sufficient condition for bringing about participation, accountability, and possibly democracy in the global sphere.