Transnational Constitution Making

Constitutions are no longer exclusively national projects, but increasingly result from broader transnational processes that form a transnational legal order.

"This book examines the largely neglected, but crucial role of transnational actors in democratic constitution-making. The writing or rewriting of constitutions is usually a key moment in democratic transitions. But how exactly does this take place? Most contemporary comparative constitutional literature draws on the concept of constituent power - the power of the people - to address this moment. But what this overlooks, this book argues, is the important role of external, transnational, actors who tend to play a crucial role in the process. Drawing on sociolegal methodologies, but informed by new legal realism, this book develops a new theoretical framework for examining the involvement of such actors in constitution-making. Empirically grounded, the book uncovers a more comprehensive picture of how constitution-making unfolds on the ground. Illuminating the power dynamics at play during the legal process, it reveals not only the wide range of external actors involved, but also the continuity between decolonisation and post-Cold War constitution-making. This book, the first to provide an in-depth examination of external actor involvement in constitution-making, will appeal to scholars of constitutional law, sociolegal studies, law and development, and transitional justice"--

"This book offers an empirically grounded theory that reframes the study of law and society from a predominantly national context, which dichotomizes the study of international law and national compliance into a dynamic perspective that places national, international, and transnational lawmaking and practice within a coherent single frame. By presenting and elaborating on a new concept, transnational legal orders it offers an original approach to the emergence of legal orders beyond nation-states. It shows how they originate, where they compete and cooperate, and how they settle on institutions that legally order fundamental economic and social behaviors that transcend national borders. This original theory is applied and developed by distinguished scholars from North America and Europe in business law, regulatory law and human rights"--

Constitution making is a topic of increasing scholarly and practical interest. Focusing on a set of important case studies, yet also featuring classic articles on the subject, this volume is a critical assembly of theoretical literature. Ensuring wide geographic and historical coverage, and including an original introduction by the editors, this collection provides an essential overview of the myriad of circumstances in which constitutions can be made.

Assesses what we know - and do not know - about comparative constitutional design and particular institutional choices concerning executive power and other issues.

The long-continuing constitutional debate, within Canada has brought a search today for new constitutional-governmental models of paradigms capable of taking us all safely into the twenty-first century. For students of Contemporary Constitutionalism, no country's experience has been more seriously studied than that of the West German federal state formed out of the three Western zones of Germany in 1949 and endowed with what was then described as a temporary governmental charter, pending final reunification of Germany. This volume is the result of a special bilateral Canadian-German conference organised by the Simon Fraser University and the Goethe-Institut of Vancouver in 1991 on the theme `The Challenge of Contemporary Constitutionalism: Canadian and German Federalism-in-the-Making'. The essays it contains, from many distinguished judges and professors from both countries, form a unique contribution both to scientific knowledge in Constitutionalism and to current ventures in Constitution-making and drafting in a number of countries -- Western and Eastern Europe, North America -- around the world.

Post 1960, all colonies enjoyed the right to sculpt their own constitutions without international assistance. Yet, from 1960-2018, over poor 40 sovereign states have adopted with United Nations Constitutional Assistance (UNCA) the Western liberal constitution. Why? A comprehensive study on UNCA, this book shows that based on the UN's official statements, UNCA works ostensibly to 'modernise' poor states. However, this results in an investor-friendly environment that largely benefits powerful transnational interests, only to secure debt-relief. Thus, political control that they experienced when they were colonies, continues in this post-colonial era.