Suchergebnisse

The Brexit referendum provokes speculation about the likelihood of European disintegration. This article discusses how scholarship might deal with the issue of disintegration and argues that it should be thought of as an indeterminate process rather than an identifiable outcome. Within the EU system, Brexit is likely to unleash disintegrative dynamics, which could see the EU stagnate into a suboptimal institutional equilibrium. At the same time, EU studies needs to lift its gaze beyond the internal dynamics of the EU system to consider the disintegration of the democratic capitalist compact within which European integration has been embedded historically.

European legal traditions can be characterised as a continuous balancing act of two seemingly contradictory forces: centralisation and de-centralisation. On the one hand, Justinian's Corpus iuris, the medieval ius commune of Roman and Canon law, the usus modernus pandectarum, and the current European harmonisation efforts all have a centralizing or rather an integrative quality about them. While the ius proprium, including the English Common law, and particularly the national codifications of the 19th century, as well as the study of these laws, exhibit more diverse, de-centralizing forces within European legal traditions. This volume shows how comparative legal history can be used as a tool to analyse similarities and differences between legal systems

Abstract:
The irony at the heart of Europe's current crisis is that although the EU originated as part of a post-1945 effort to consolidate democracy in Western Europe, the Union's travails are now pushing the continent in the opposite direction instead. Stable democracy is only a product of the post 1945 period in Europe. This article discusses changes that occurred in Europe after the Second World War at both domestic and regional levels and argues that while the former played a critical role in stabilizing Europe, the latter eventually worked to undermine it.

Reviews political, social, and military conditions in the Balkans nine years after Dayton, five years after the NATO air campaign in Kosovo, and three years after the Ohrid Agreement on the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, acknowledging great progress towards peace accompanied with various difficulties and setbacks. While arguing for the end of the mandate of the High Representative and a transfer of full powers to elected Bosnian representatives, this article also explores the pressing issues of the future of Kosovo and whether the two republics of Serbia and Montenegro will stay together.