The Brazilian experience in constitutional amendments illustrates several difficulties posed in conciliating analytical constitutionalism with democracy. The Brazilian constitution in its 30th anniversary, may reach 100 amendments, suggesting even a case of abusive constitutionalism. Most amendments bring to the constitutional text, components of public policies put in place by the incumbent president and parties, sometimes...
Tag: <span>TUESDAY JUNE 26 2018 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM</span>
Constitutional identity in discussion without changing Constitution? Territorial model in Spain
In Spain, formal processes to reform the 1978 Constitution has been scarcely used, and only to implement European treaties (1992) and to attain economic objectives of the European Union (2011). In such context, invariability and immutability of the constitutional text seems to become a defining characteristic of that constitutional identity. Based on the incrementalism model-approach,...
Constitutional Law and Economics
This chapter addresses a new and fertile research program: constitutional law and economics. Constitutional law and economics asks questions like, ‘What is the extent of the U.S. Congress‘s power to regulate commerce?‘; ‘How much legislative authority can be delegated to administrators?‘; and ‘When should constitutional change happen through judicial updating rather than formal amendment?‘ To...
Constitutional Obligations of Corporations in Europe
Developments in business and human rights in the past decade reveal a division between voluntary and binding approaches to the questions of whether corporations have human rights obligations and whether they should be held accountable for their human rights impacts. Even though the proponents of both sides attempt to demonstrate that these approaches are not...
Constitutional Rights, Corporate Persons, and Accountability in the United States
The United States Constitution, as well as those of many of the states in the Union, contain extensive and well known categories of fundamental rights which are protected against the assertion of governmental power. These fundamental protections are derived from the Constitutional documents themselves or are extracted from ancient rights and customs recognized at the...
Ethnicity and power sharing in African federations
More than a clamor for autonomy, it is access to central power that defines the political contestations characterizing African states. Autonomy, within a decentralized framework, does not feature prominently in the debates about institutional design and reconfiguration of the African state. The literature on conflict management in Africa is rather replete with modes and experiences...
Family law arbitration, how new British citizens are seeking justice
British commonwealth citizens came and built their lives in Britain and with that came family reunification and the birth of the first British born South Asians. These new Brits have gone on to have their own families and now are left with the difficult task of framing their plural identity alongside their place of birth....
For a social theory of migration law
The social theory of migration has attached a marginal role to the State and the law, focusing on demographic, economic and social factors instead. Much of the literature argues that attempts to regulate or limit migratory flows fail in all major industrialised democracies (Hollifield, Martin, Orrenius 2004; Castles 2004). Others have explicitly criticised this idea:...
Gender and Ethnic Diversity in International Arbitration
The absence of women in international arbitration causes concerns from an equality perspective but also from a representational democracy perspective. Put differently, the absence of women constitutes an issue for the legitimacy of such jurisdictions. This is problematic given that an increasing number of issues are “litigated“ via arbitration and that in certain areas, such...