Constitutions And The Commons

Constitutions and the Commons looks at a critical but little examined issue of the degree to which the federal constitution of a nation contributes toward or limits the ability of the national government to manage its domestic natural resources. Furthermore it considers how far the constitution facilitates the binding of constituent states, provinces or subnational units to honor the conditions of international environmental treaties. While the main focus is on the US, there is also detailed coverage of other nations such as Australia, Brazil, India, and Russia. After introducing the role of constitutions in establishing the legal framework for environmental management in federal systems, the author presents a continuum of constitutionally driven natural resource management scenarios, from local to national, and then to global governance. These sections describe how subnational governance in federal systems may take on the characteristics of a commons – with all the attendant tragedies – in the absence of sufficient national constitutional authority. In turn, sufficient national constitutional authority over natural resources also allows these nations to more effectively engage in efforts to manage the global commons, as these nations would be unconstrained by subnational units of government during international negotiations. It is thus shown that national governments in federal systems are at the center of a constitutional 'nested governance commons,' with lower levels of government potentially acting as rational herders on the national commons and national governments potentially acting as rational herders on the global commons. National governments in federal systems are therefore crucial to establishing sustainable management of resources across scales. The book concludes by discussing how federal systems without sufficient national constitutional authority over resources may be strengthened by adopting the approach of federal constitutions that facilitate more robust national level inputs into natural resources management, facilitating national minimum standards as a form of "Fail-safe Federalism" that subnational governments may supplement with discretion to preserve important values of federalism.

In 1949, United Nations Constitutional Assistance (UNCA) was conceived to promote the Western liberal constitution. This was colonial trusteeship. However, in 1960, as a step towards decolonization, the United Nations General Assembly rejected internationalized constitution-making, and, by extension, UNCA. All colonies acquired the right to draft their own constitutions without any international assistance. Nonetheless, in the same year, UNCA was revived and since then it has helped over 40 developing sovereign states to adopt the Western liberal constitution, for the aims of building peace, preventing conflict, and promoting good governance in these independent states. This book scrutinizes UNCA and its off-shoot, UN/International Territorial Administration (ITA), including their historical origins and revival from 1960 to 2019. Sripati argues that although the United Nations (UN) uses UNCA to help developing sovereign states secure debt relief, it undertakes UNCA to ‘modernize’ them with a view to ‘strengthen’ their supposedly weakened sovereignty. By doing so, the UN is seeking these states’ adoption of a Western liberal-style constitution, thus violating their right to self-determination. The book shows how UNCA sires and guides UN (legislative) assistance in all state-sectors: security, judicial, electoral, commercial, parliamentary, public administration, and criminal. Irrespective of UNCA’s benevolent motivations, such intrusive interventions impose the old forms of domination and perpetuate global inequality.

Offers a distinctive account of the rule of law and legislative sovereignty within the work of Albert Venn Dicey.

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In the years since independence, the Indian subcontinent has witnessed an alarming rise in violence against marginalized communities, with an increasing number of groups pushed to the margins of the democratic order. Against this background of violence, injustice and the abuse of rights, this book explores the critical, ‘insurgent’ possibilities of constitutionalism as a means of revitalising the concepts of non-discrimination and liberty, and of reimagining democratic citizenship. The book argues that the breaking down of discrimination in constitutional interpretation and the narrowing of the field of liberty in law deepen discriminatory ideologies and practices. Instead, it offers an intersectional approach to jurisprudence as a means of enabling the law to address the problem of discrimination along multiple, intersecting axes. The argument is developed in the context of the various grounds of discrimination mentioned in the constitution — caste, tribe, religious minorities, women, sexual minorities, and disability. The study draws on a rich body of materials, including official reports, case law and historical records, and uses insights from social theory, anthropology, literary and historical studies and constitutional jurisprudence to offer a new reading of non-discrimination. This book will be useful to those interested in law, sociology, gender studies, politics, constitutionalism, disability studies, human rights, social exclusion, etc.