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Summary in English.

Summary in English.

Armin von Bogdandy, Petros C. Mavroidis, & Yves Meny produced a Liber amicorum in honor of Claus-Dieter Ehlermann, one of the best known experts on the European Constitutional Treaty & European integration. The volume, European Integration and International Coordination (2002), contains valuable contributions by several famous authors & professionals. The answers to some pressing questions constitute the core of the publication: Has information technology removed the territorial connotation of the law? How can the law adapt to the new global village? Is it possible to have a world juridical system without the existence of a world government? The authors seek for answers in the classic concepts of international law. M. Williamson

The Author analyses the comparative legal profiles of citizenship in the constitutional legal orders of some African, Latin American and Asian countries, providing brief examples. The paper focuses on the following aspects: a) language problems raised by the comparison of different legal orders; b) the concept of citizenship in constitutional law; c) the relationship between the legal status of citizenship and forms of State; d) the configuration of citizenship in Islamic law and in federal States; e) conditions for the acquisition and the deprivation of citizenship, solutions to cases of double nationality, the international effort to tackle statelessness. Adapted from the source document.

The paper takes into account a feature of Hans Kelsen's juridical thinking that has been so far rather underestimated: the weight of normativism on his theory of private law. The author closely connects Kelsen's critical approach to the notion of subjective right and further relates the legal norms to the institutions of the market economy. The interepretative assumptions of Kelsen are constantly confronted with the theoretical background that propelled the development of the modern constitutional state based on the rule of law.

This article explores the possibility of applying the tools of economic analysis of law, which are traditionally used in the field of private law, to public law as well. The first part investigates constitutional law issues, addressed by prevailing approaches through the social contract framework, by applying an agreement model to a general public good such as the State. This model is typically based on games with features of the 'prisoner's dilemma.' Through the analysis of constitutional preferences that may transform such dilemma in a game with full cooperation equilibrium, two types of preferences are compared: 'utilitarian based on impartiality principle' & 'rawlsian based on difference principle'; it is shown that this second type better facilitates the constitutional agreement. With the objective of utilizing more easily economic theory tools, the article then attempts to apply the distinction between private & public good to that between private & public rights. In particular, both public goods & public rights can be assimilated as they are non-excludable & non-transferable through exchanges or contracts. Moreover, an attempt is made to define an economic counterpart to the juridical notion of 'general interest' which is the basis for those norms in the fields of public & administrative law envisaging the direct intervention of the State to remedy market failures, both at constitutional & sub-constitutional level. Hence the question of what are the most efficient legal procedures to solve such problems is addressed. Using above all the case of negative externalities related to private goods, the article discusses in particular when it is more efficient to resort to administrative interventions rather than judicial ones; or otherwise allowing such problems to be dealt with through private bargaining between injured & injurers. In this respect the latest literature of economic analysis of law often favors private bargaining in the spirit of Coase's thinking. However, it is here put forward that in terms of cost-benefit analysis economic theory reaches much less radical conclusions often supporting the higher efficiency of legal rules & administrative types of intervention. In the final part of the article, different legal systems (minimal, neoliberal, welfarist) are compared by way of analyzing their rationale & limitations from an efficiency point of view. Adapted from the source document.

A review essay on books by (1) Andreas Auer & Michael Butzer (Eds), Direct Democracy: The Eastern and Central European Experience (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001); & (2) Alfonso di Giovine, Democrazia diretta e sistema politico ([Direct Democracy and the Political System] Padova: CEDAM, 2001). The author reviews two books on the referendum phenomenon, one on the experience in Central & Eastern European countries, & the other on the Italian experience. Auer & Butzer's edited collection offers essays written by scholars, constitutionalists, & political scientists, & has its origins in the conclusions of an international study congress held in Budapest in Feb 2000. The book is the result of intense study & research promoted by the Centre d'etudes et de documentation sur la democratie directe (c2d -- http://c2d.unige.ch) set up in 1993 in the Dept of Constitutional Law of the U of Geneva. The first part contains 12 contributions on referendum as such as well as on experiences in 12 Central & Eastern European countries, from the Baltic to the Balkans. The second part features 13 contributions commenting on a number of different institutional issues relating to normative theory & empirical analysis. Di Giovine, an Italian constitutionalist, presents a collection of articles on the Italian referendum experience. The Central-Eastern European & Italian experiences are different in many aspects, but they have two significant points in common: the importance of the role played by political parties, & the requirement of a quorum for the vote to be valid. Auer holds that "threshold requirements are a childhood disease of direct democracy" whereas Di Giovine believes that threshold requirements & abstentionism must be given due consideration in order to counteract referendum abuse. The reviewer's opinion is that the quorum ought to be disposed of.