Suchergebnisse

The constitutional identity of the Member States is a topic of increasing importance in understanding the interaction between the EU and its Member States. This is because the EU is enjoined to respect the constitutional identities of its Member States in accordance with Article 4(2) TEU. There is also a trend among Member States to articulate their constitutional identities, in particular in relation to European integration. In this regard, this volume fills a need in scholarship by presenting critical analyses of the constitutional identities of selected Member States. Leading and well-placed experts contribute country studies on a range of states, which are compared using a framework that can be applied to other Member States as well. The analyses and comparison of Member States' constitutional identities take place in the context of the EU's multilevel architecture.

In the Article hereby commented, Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann further elaborates on his will-known thesis on the constitutionalisation of UN law and WTO law. Petersmann argues, first, that the EU provides a successful example in the governance of transnational public goods; secondly, that such success story is essentially due to the EU's basic institutional arrangements, characterised as 'mulitilevel constitutionalism'. Petersmann thus submits that die EU's multilevel constitutionalism provides a viable template for the international community at large, and that the UN and die WTO should further proceed down the path of 'hard' constitutionalisation following the EU's example. This Reply takes issue with the second of the Article's assumptions. It thus argues that the notion of multilevel constitutionalism does not provide a descriptively accurate account of the structure of the European legal space. Rather, it is submitted, the literature on constitutional pluralism captures more adequately the reality of competing claims to final authority in structuring the relationship between national and supranational legal system in the context of the EU. Against this background, Petersmann's claim the the 'European model' ought to be transposed to the globel stage can be nuanced. Rather than aiming at enforcing normative hierarchies through effective dispute resolution mechanisms, the 'constitional' value of (quasi-)universal fora such as the UN and the WTO can thus lie in the potential to provide a common 'grammar' to discursively structure the dialogue between competing normative views on globel affairs along lines of mutual intelligibility.

¿Cuál es la relación entre jueces, constitucionalismo multinivel y pluralismo constitucional? Para poder responder a esta pregunta debemos, primero que todo, aclarar qué entendemos por constitucionalismo multinivel y por pluralismo constitucional en el marco de este trabajo. Constitucionalismo multinivel es el discurso que aboga por la consecución de objetivos constitucionales (protección de valores comunes, organización y limitación del poder) a través de la articulación de los diversos ordenamientos del actual escenario jurídico global. Así, la constitucionalización multinivel es el proceso articulado que coordina diversas esferas jurídicas (vertical, horizontal y funcional), y que da lugar a un sistema de redes constitucionales antes que a un régimen constitucional único.

Present economy and society are under a "digital revolution". Digital platforms connect service and product suppliers to recipients all around the world creating new businesses and changing business models in place. Old-fashioned informal gig-economy and sharing practices by using the new technology seem to change consumption and production patterns to more efficient and sustainable ones… or maybe not. This "new economy" also poses several challenges to law questioning the adequacy of concepts and regulations in force. Disputes with authorities and incumbent industries end up in violence or in courts, including the European Court of Justice. We intend to give an overview of those challenges, especially in light of European Union law and following a multilevel constitutionalist approach, which we believe is best suited to respond to the regulatory challenges of this "new economy".

The 'constitutional failures' ushering in World Wars I and II and the emergence of post-war 'multilevel constitutionalism' in Europe suggest that also UN/WTO law can effectively protect international public goods only if UN/WTO law are interpreted and protected for the benefit of citizens in conformity with the human rights and other 'principles of justice' recognized by all UN member states. This paper discusses recent publications by Philip Allott on 'international constitutionalism' and argues that the necessary transformation of the prevailing conceptions of 'international law among sovereign states' into a 'multilevel constitutional law of humanity' requires extending 'multilevel constitutionalism' to UN/WTO governance of public goods with due respect for 'constitutional pluralism' protecting individual and democratic diversity, subsidiarity and 'institutional experimentation'.