Suchergebnisse

The current human disasters – like illegal wars of aggression, violent suppression of human and democratic rights, health pandemics, climate change, ocean pollution, overfishing and other biodiversity losses, non-compliance with United Nations (UN) and World Trade Organization (WTO) law – reflect governance failures and insufficient cooperation (section I.) to protect the 'sustainable development goals' (SDGs). Since 1950, Europe's multilevel constitutionalism succeeded in progressively limiting transnational governance failures; yet, it is not followed outside Europe (section II.). Geopolitical rivalries (e. g. among authoritarian and democratic states) and competing national and regional regulations (e. g. on decarbonisation, digitalisation, and securitisation of economies) increasingly undermine UN and WTO legal restraints and judicial remedies (see section III.). The more globalisation is perceived as creating vulnerabilities justifying national security restrictions (e. g. against spread of viruses, weaponisation of interdependence), the more democracies resort to plurilateral second-best responses like trade, investment and environmental agreements conditioning market access on respect for human rights and greenhouse gas reductions (section IV.). This contribution explains why regulatory competition, 'authoritarian alliances', and their influence on plurilateral agreements (e. g. in Asia) render 'constitutional UN/WTO reforms' and realisation of the SDGs unlikely.

The 2030 UN Sustainable Development Agenda aims at 'transforming our world' to protect universally agreed sustainable development goals (SDGs) that – due to globalization – can no longer be secured by any state without international law and multilevel governance of global public goods (PGs). Democratic and republican constitutionalism historically emerged as the most effective methods for protecting local and national PGs demanded by citizens; they need to be complemented by functionally limited, multilevel constitutionalism securing transnational 'aggregate PGs' like mutually beneficial trade, investment and environmental protection systems. This contribution explains why commitments to human rights, democratic governance and rule of law have become incomplete safeguards of the SDGs without complementary, constitutional reforms of international trade law (II), investment law (III) and environmental law (IV). Human rights require embedding national 'constitutionalism 1.0' and functionally limited 'treaty constitutions 2.0' into 'cosmopolitan constitutionalism 3.0' empowering and protecting citizens and representative, multilevel governance institutions (V). Constitutional, participatory and deliberative democracy, private-public partnerships (e.g. for inventing and producing vaccines) and citizen-driven network governance (e.g. for decarbonizing economies) remain crucial for providing PGs and for protecting humanity against authoritarian power politics (VI). Are the necessary constitutional reforms politically feasible at a time of Russian wars of aggression aimed at suppressing human rights and democratic governance?

ABSTRACT
The current non-compliance with United Nations (UN) and World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements protecting transnational public goods, military aggression among WTO members, violent suppression of human and democratic rights, global health pandemics, climate change, ocean pollution, overfishing, and other biodiversity losses reflect 'governance failures' (e.g. to limit 'market failures') and 'constitutional failures' (e.g. to protect human and democratic rights and the sustainable development goals). The geopolitical rivalries among totalitarian governments and democracies render constitutional UN and WTO reforms unlikely. They entail 'regulatory competition' (e.g. among neoliberalism, state capitalism, and ordo-liberal constitutionalism) and plurilateral responses aimed at limiting abuses of power (like collective countermeasures against Russia's illegal wars and war crimes) and at protecting transnational public goods (like plurilateral 'climate change mitigation clubs', appeal arbitration among WTO members, regional human rights and security agreements). The power politics disrupting the UN and WTO legal systems is bound to promote regionalization of economic law, re-globalization of supply chains, and geopolitical rivalries resulting from conflicting value priorities and neglect for the human rights underlying the sustainable development goals.

The 2030 United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Agenda defines its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG S) in terms of human rights and multilevel governance of related public goods. The global health pandemics, environmental crises, and geopolitical trade wars reveal governance failures and related 'constitutional failures' to protect human and constitutional rights effectively by democratic legislation, administrative and judicial remedies of citizens, and transnational rule of law. The SDG S require stronger, multilevel legal restraints on 'market failures' (like environmental pollution), 'governance failures' (like insufficient remedies against abuses of executive powers) and 'constitutional failures' (like neglect for transnational rule of law and the 'Anthropocene'). Democratic legislation and citizen-driven, administrative, and judicial remedies must strengthen accountability of governments for decarbonizing economies and protecting human rights (e.g., environmental and public health protection). Worldwide protection of the SDG S requires reforming multilevel governance beyond Europe's multilevel constitutionalism in order to prevent policy conflicts through transnational rule of law and 'constitutional embedding' of UN/World Trade Organization (WTO) governance.

Abstract
This contribution uses the examples of Great Britain's withdrawal from the EU (Brexit) and US withdrawal from multilateral trade and environmental agreements for exploring political, economic, environmental, social, and legal reasons driving the backlash against economic integration agreements. In both examples, populist battle-cries for 'taking back control' and for lowering regulatory standards were followed by governmental attempts at evading parliamentary control over executive foreign policy powers to violate, or withdraw from, multilateral agreements. Anglo-Saxon neo-liberalism, President Trump's mercantilist power politics, authoritarian state-capitalism (e.g. in China), and European ordo-liberalism reflect systemic divergences that may justify broad interpretations of WTO 'exceptions' (e.g. for WTO trade remedies and climate change mitigation). Europe's multilevel, democratic constitutionalism protecting 'social market economies' was comparatively more effective in limiting protectionism and carbon emissions inside Europe's common market. The EU's 'new green deal' for a carbon-neutral 'green economy' was made possible by stronger, social, and democratic support based on 'constitutional interpretations' of Europe's ordo-liberalism assisting adversely affected workers, producers, traders, investors, and other citizens to adjust economic and environmental activities to climate change mitigation. EU leadership for WTO-consistent climate change rules requires 'greening embedded liberalism' by interpreting the WTO 'sustainable development' objectives in conformity with the 2015 Paris Agreement, the UN 'sustainable development goals', and human rights (e.g. as legal basis for climate change litigation in Europe).