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Organic Global Constitutionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2010

CHRISTINE E. J. SCHWÖBEL
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Abstract

Global constitutionalism is becoming increasingly prevalent in international legal discourse. While the various contributions give the impression of a seemingly complex and diverse debate, the contributions in fact all share some significant omissions and biases. It is argued here that the limitations, to be found in the disregard for processes such as fragmentation, and the biases, to be found through such realities as hegemony in international law, give rise to the necessity of a reconceptualization of the global constitutional debate. It is suggested that global constitutionalism should be reconfigured in terms of what is called ‘organic global constitutionalism’. Organic global constitutionalism should be understood as being defined by constitutionalism as process, constitutionalism as political, constitutionalism as a ‘negative universal’, and constitutionalism as a promise for the future. These features would offer an alternative way of framing the debate and a means of redeeming the idea of global constitutionalism.

Keywords

biasflexibilityglobal constitutionalismliberal democraticorganic
Type
ARTICLES
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 529 - 553
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2010

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References

1 The term ‘organic constitutionalism’ was notably first introduced by G. W. F. Hegel, in Hegel, Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (1952), §§ 271, 272. His meaning of the term is slightly different from the way I use it. Hegel spoke of constitutionalism for the national rather than the international sphere; ‘organic’ for him meant that constitutions should be in tune with the historical situatedness and culture of a given society. This type of ‘organic’ is only truly ‘organic’ when a constitution is being drafted. After the constitution has been written, it is again fixed. D. T. ButleRitchie argues for a similar type of domestic constitutionalism (explaining his use of the word ‘organic’ as referring to the social and political context within a state: ‘constitutional formation should be homegrown’) in ButleRitchie, ‘Organic Constitutionalism: Rousseau, Hegel and the Constitution of Society’, (2006) 6 Journal of Law and Society 36 (particularly at 41). ‘Organic’ for global constitutionalism is also sensitive to historical backgrounds, present circumstances, and cultures, but is significantly never-ending in this sensitivity and fluidity. This type of constitutionalism adapts constantly to circumstances and to the participants in the constitutional dialogue.

2 This is, of course, only one way of organizing the debate. For another method, see J. L. Dunoff and J. P. Trachtman, ‘A Functional Approach to International Constitutionalization’, in J. L. Dunoff and J. P. Trachtman (eds.), Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance (2009).

3 The term ‘international community school’ in the debate on global constitutionalism was first coined by Fassbender, B., ‘The United Nations Charter as Constitution of the International Community’, (1998) 36 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 529, at 546 ffGoogle Scholar.

4 C. Tomuschat, ‘International Law: Ensuring the Survival of Mankind on the Eve of a New Century’, General Course on Public International Law, (1999) 281 RCADI 195, at 237.

5 The belief that the international sphere is an international legal order, i.e. a normative system that transcends the national legal systems, is necessarily a common premise for contributors to the debate on global constitutionalism.

6 Teubner, G., ‘Globale Zivilverfassungen: Alternativen zur staatszentrierten Verfassungstheorie’, (2003) 63 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 1, at 6Google Scholar; Fischer-Lescano, A., ‘Die Emergenz der Globalverfassung’, (2003) 63 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 717, at 759Google Scholar.

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8 See particularly Fassbender, supra note 3; R. Macdonald, ‘The International Community as a Legal Community’, in R. Macdonald and D. M. Johnston (eds.), Towards World Constitutionalism – Issues in the Legal Ordering of the World Community (2005), 879.

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15 Ibid., at 613.

16 A. Verdross, Die Verfassung der Völkerrechtsgemeinschaft (1926); C. Tomuschat, ‘Obligations Arising for States without or against Their Will’, (1993) 241 RCADI 216.

17 Uerpmann, R., ‘Internationales Verfassungsrecht’, (2001) 56 Juristen Zeitung 565Google Scholar.

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19 The idea of the international sphere as incorporating a particular order or system is at variance with ideas that understand practices in the international sphere as chaotic or as purely derived from state interest. For a useful analysis regarding global constitutionalism, see A. L. Paulus, ‘The International Legal System as a Constitution’, in Dunoff and Trachtman, supra note 2, at 69.

20 E.g. Fassbender, supra note 3, at 551.

21 Report of the Study Group of the ILC, 58th session (2006), A/CN.4/L.682.

22 Ibid., at 11.

23 J. Klabbers, ‘Setting the Scene’, in J. Klabbers, A. Peters, and G. Ulfstein, The Constitutionalization of International Law (2009), 11.

24 Wouter Werner highlights that this disjuncture between the ‘is’ (the facts) and the ‘ought’ (the normative) does not lead advocates of global constitutionalism to question or ‘water down’ their ideals but rather leads them to emphasize the need to change the facts. W. Werner, ‘The Never-Ending Closure: Constitutionalism and International Law’, in N. Tsagourias (ed), ‘Transnational Constitutionalism – International and European Perspectives (2007), 342.

25 See, e.g., A. Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (2008); Koskenniemi, M., ‘International Law and Hegemony: A Reconfiguration’, (2004) 17 Cambridge Review of International Affairs 197, at 199CrossRefGoogle Scholar; E. W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (1993).

26 H. Charlesworth and C. Chinkin, The Boundaries of International Law (2000).

27 Kadelbach, S., ‘Völkerrecht als Verfassungsordnung? Zur Völkerrechtswissenschaft in Deutschland’, (2007) 67 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 599Google Scholar.

28 I. Kant, Perpetual Peace, ed. and trans. L. W. Beck (1957).

29 See ButleRitchie, supra note 1, at 67.

30 M. Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960 (2004), 3.

31 D. Held, Democracy and the Global Order (1995), 9.

32 Ibid., at 269.

33 J. Tully, Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity (1995), 7.

34 See C. Hanisch, ‘The Personal Is Political’, in S. Firestone and A. Koedt (eds.), Notes from the Second Year: Women's Liberation in 1970 (1970). In a new introduction in 2006, Carol Hanisch clarifies that she was not the one to give the original paper its title, but rather that it was the editors, Firestone and Koedt.

35 C. Gilligan, In a Different Voice (1982).

36 S. Benhabib, Situating the Self (1992), 158.

37 Charlesworth and Chinkin, supra note 26.

38 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), 299.

39 Koskenniemi, Martti, ‘International Law and Hegemony: A Reconfiguration’, (2004) 17 Cambridge Review of International Affairs 199CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Arendt, supra note 38, at 299.

41 V. Leary, ‘The Effect of Western Perspectives on International Human Rights’, in A. A. An-Na'im and F. M. Deng (eds.), Human Rights in Africa: Cross-cultural Perspectives (1990), 15; Mutua, M., ‘The Ideology of Human Rights’, (1995–6) 36 Virginia Journal of International Law 588Google Scholar.

42 Some writers therefore even claim that development has gone so far that history and political evolution have come to an end. See particularly Francis Fukuyama, who claims in The End of History and the Last Man (1992) that the universalization of Western liberal democracy signals the end of mankind's ideological evolution.

43 Koskenniemi, M., ‘Constitutionalism as Mindset: Reflections on Kantian Themes about International Law and Globalization’, (2007) 8 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 9, at 11Google Scholar. Reference to H. Kelsen, Introduction to Problems of Legal Theory, trans. B. L. Paulson and S. L. Paulson (1992), 81.

44 R. Collins, ‘Constitutionalism as Liberal-Juridical Consciousness: Echoes from International Law's Past’, (2009) 22 LJIL 256.

45 Paulus, supra note 19, at 87.

46 M. Koskenniemi, ‘What is International Law for?’, in M. Evans (ed.), International Law (2006), 71.

47 Tully, supra note 33.

48 Ibid., at 1.

49 Ibid., at 17–24.

50 Ibid., at 23, 24.

51 Ibid., at 38; see also Klabbers, supra note 23, at 9.

52 Tully, supra note 33, at 31.

53 Ibid., at 16.

54 Ibid., at 37.

55 J. Squires, ‘Liberal Constitutionalism, Identity and Difference’, in R. Bellamy and D. Castiglione (eds.), Constitutionalism in Transformation: European and Theoretical Perspectives (1996), 212.

56 Ibid.

57 I. M. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990), 312.

58 Tully, supra note 33, at 40.

59 Ibid., at 31.

60 Kadelbach, S. and Kleinlein, T., ‘International Law – a Constitution for Mankind? An Attempt at a Re-appraisal with an Analysis of Constitutional Principles’, (2007) 50 German Yearbook of International Law 303, at 345Google Scholar.

61 Slaughter, supra note 7, at 245.

62 David T. ButleRitchie argues in favour of ‘organic constitutionalism’ on a domestic scale on this basis. ButleRitchie, supra note 1, at 69.

63 D. Kennedy, ‘The Disciplines of International Law and Policy’, (1999) 12 LJIL 9, at 18.

64 Ibid., at 14, 83.

65 Ibid., at 21.

66 Ibid., at 27.

67 Ibid., at 53.

68 Ibid., at 58.

69 S. Marks, The Riddle of All Constitutions (2003).

70 Kennedy, supra note 63, at 34.

71 Ibid., at 35.

72 Squires, supra note 55, at 209.

73 Werner, supra note 24, at 348.

74 Miller, D., ‘Citizenship and Pluralism’, (1995) 43 Political Studies 432CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 R. Bellamy ‘The Political Form of the Constitution: The Separation of Powers, Rights and Representative Democracy’, in Bellamy and Castiglione, supra note 55, at 43.

76 Squires, supra note 55, at 216.

77 J. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, trans. W. Rehg (1998), 4.

78 J. Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. C. Lenhardt and S. W. Nicholsen (1990), 197.

79 Ibid., at 67.

80 Squires, supra note 55, at 218.

81 Habermas, Divided West, supra note 7.

82 Tully, supra note 33, at 131.

83 Ibid., at 134.

84 Ibid., at 185.

85 U. Fastenrath, ‘Relative Normativity in International Law’, (1993) 4 EJIL 305, at 310.

86 Koskenniemi, supra note 43, at 11. Reference to Kelsen, supra note 43, at 81.

87 E. Laclau, Emancipation(s) (2007).

88 Ibid., at 4–6.

89 Ibid., at 13.

90 Ibid., at 14.

91 Ibid., at 14.

92 Ibid., at 15.

93 J. Rawls, The Law of Peoples (2002).

94 Nico Krisch also comes across the problem of normativity as regards his vision of global administrative law. In his view, global administrative law causes the ‘disappearance of a clearly competent authority’. This implies, similarly to what is suggested for organic global constitutionalism, ‘fluidity’. In his view, fluidity leads to the limitation of a ‘lack of certainty’. N. Krisch, ‘The Pluralism of Global Administrative Law’, (2006) 17 EJIL 247, at 275. The characteristic of organic global constitutionalism as a promise for the future could possibly be a means to overcome the chasm between fluidity, on the one hand, and normativity, on the other.

95 Laclau, supra note 87, at 73.

96 J. Derrida, Specters of Marx (2006), 74.

97 Ibid., at 81.

98 Squires, supra note 55, at 215.

99 Ibid., at 212 ff.

100 Ibid., at 212.

101 Ibid., at 215.

102 Nico Krisch has voiced a similar concern regarding flexible and fluid global administrative law. He considers that the reliance on a free interplay through a pluralist approach could ‘merely favour the powerful at the expense of the weak’. Krisch, supra note 94, at 275.