State structure has always to deal with ethnic realities rooted in specific territories within a single State. Various public law studies have shown that, to face this problem, the preferable level of government is not a centralised but a decentralised one. Today federalism is considered one of the privileged solutions for the administration of power....
Tag: <span>WEDNESDAY JUNE 27 2018 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM</span>
The Influence of International Law on Constitutional Law in Asia
How far has constitution-making in East Asian countries been influenced by the international law (and international society)? Many Asian countries established independence and stipulated their own constitutions for the first time after World War II. Therefore constitution-making was a new experience. It is not surprising that they overtly or covertly sought international or foreign aid....
The Expanding Symmetry of the Rule of Law
Giovanni Sartori ‘democracy on a large scale is not the sum of many little democracies.‘ I ask the same question of the rule of law. If rule of law applied similarly to every subsidiary unit, would this achieve a more complete rule-of-law? Most accounts of the rule of law stress the importance of congruence between...
The ECB’s accountability to national and European parliaments today
The European Central Bank is a strictly independent institution. Nevertheless, this does not mean that it may not be held accountable for its actions; rather, it implies that it is submitted to an accountability of a special kind that does not entail (strong) consequences. With the creation of the Banking Union, accountability mechanisms vis-à-vis national...
The ECHR Article 8‘s Right to Privacy: Cordon Sanitaire or Isolation Tank? Homosexuality, Transsexualism, and Sado-Masochism in the ECtHR Case-law.
The paper would deal with the interpretation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights given by the European Court of Human Rights in its case-law regarding homosexuality, transgender rights, same-sex partnerships, sadomasochism. Initially intended as the provision of the Convention protecting family and private life against the whole gamut of fascist and...
The Enigmatic Notion of Constitutional Identity
Constitutional identity is the buzz word of the day in constitutional theory and European politics. Member States invoke it to question the primacy of EU law and sometimes even to justify illiberal constitutional politics. Nevertheless, its meaning remains vague. This paper will shed light on constitutional identity by contrasting it with important conceptions of collective...
The Design of Jurisdiction in Asylum Proceedings. Reflections on the Italian Case
Since the 1951 Convention on refugees, the right not to be returned to a country where one is at risk of prosecution is recognised as one of the few principles that international law imposes on States‘ discretionary power. An extensive international literature has focused on the ways in which states have tried to circumvent this...
The Constitutional Project of “One Country, Two Systems“ in Hong Kong
The constitutional arrangement of “One Country, Two Systems“ as applied to Hong Kong since 1997 was designed to enable Hong Kong as a Special Administrative region (SAR) of the People‘s Republic of China (PRC) to enjoy a high degree of autonomy, to preserve its common law based legal system, the rule of law, judicial independence...
The changes of criminal law and collective consciousness in contemporary China: A Durkheimian approach
Durkheim’s extensive analysis of crime, repressive sanction and penal law is carried on as a means of illuminating the changes of collective consciousness (CC hereinafter) and mechanical solidarity. Repressive sanctions are deemed as a social institution which is caused by CC. Durkheim, in this sense, tries to look for the underpinning moral substance in repressive...
The Place of Liberty: Staying the Sentence of Imprisonment in a Comparative Constitutional Perspective
When an individual charged with a criminal offense is convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, the question arises as to whether the higher courts exercising judicial review should stay the sentence until the result of such a review is determined. The question is particularly interesting in the context of that group of cases in which the...