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Kelsen, Schmitt, Arendt, and the Possibilities of Constitutionalization in (International) Law: Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2010

ALEXANDRA KEMMERER
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Extract

It is tempting to introduce this special section in an apologetic tone. Has not enough been written, in recent years, on constitutionalization, that new phenomenon and term which has recently entered the world of politics and law, closely related to global constitutionalism, to constitutionalism in international law? And is there really a need to publish another three articles on Hans Kelsen, Carl Schmitt, and Hannah Arendt, instead of highlighting new faces and frames of thought in international law and its theory?

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ARTICLES
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Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 23 , Special Issue 4: Kelsen, Schmitt, Arendt, and the Possibilities of Constitutionalisation in (International) Law , December 2010 , pp. 717 - 722
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Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2010

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References

1 For a sceptical reflection on the concept of constitutionalization, see M. Loughlin, ‘What is Constitutionalisation?’, in P. Dobner and M. Loughlin (eds.), The Twilight of Constitutionalism? (2010), 47.

2 See, most recently, J. L. Dunoff and J. P. Trachtmann (eds.), Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law and Global Governance (2009); J. Klabbers, A. Peters, and G. Ulfstein, The Constitutionalization of International Law (2009); B. Fassbender, The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community (2009).

3 The papers in this symposium were originally presented at the workshop ‘Kelsen Schmitt Arendt and the Possibilities of (International) Law: Part I, Constitutionalisation’, Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at the University of Leipzig, 11–12 June 2009 – the first part of a trans-European workshop series on (the role of) theory in international law. For a detailed and thoughtful workshop report, critically engaging with the papers published here, see Ley, I., ‘Which Role for Theory in International Law?’, 11 German Law Journal (2010, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

4 Loughlin, supra note 1, at 47.

5 Examples of such ‘muddling through’ are to be found in M. Koskenniemi, ‘International Law Aspects of the Common Foreign and Security Policy’, in Koskenniemi, International Law Aspects of the European Union (1998), 27. For a critique of new forms of managerialism as current reconfigurations of such indeterminacy, see M. Koskenniemi, ‘The Politics of International Law – Twenty Years Later’, (2009) 20 EJIL 7. Yet a ‘muddling through’ can also be reflected in a deliberately situational and volatile theoretical approach: ‘Wir gleichen Seeleuten auf ununterbrochener Fahrt, und jedes Buch kann nicht mehr als ein Logbuch sein.’ C. Schmitt, Völkerrechtliche Großraumordnung mit Interventionsverbot für raumfremde Mächte (1941), II, paraphrasing E. Jünger, Das abenteuerliche Herz (1929), 201.

6 See, e.g., for a critique, Hoffmann, F. F., ‘Gentle Civilizer Decayed? Moving (beyond) International Law’ (review article on Anthony Carty, Philosophy of International Law (2007)), (2009) 72 Modern Law Review 1016Google Scholar.

7 On that differentiation see R. Mehring, ‘Otto Kirchheimer und der Links-Schmittismus’, in R. Voigt (ed.), Der Staat des Dezisionismus. Carl Schmitt in der internationalen Debatte (2007), 60, at 60–2.

8 See Weiler, J. H. H., ‘Editorial: Passing the Baton – a Manifesto’, (2010) 8 International Journal of Constitutional Law 1, at 2Google Scholar.

9 A. Kemmerer, ‘The Turning Aside: On International Law and Its History’, in R. M. Bratspies and R. A. Miller (eds.), Progress in International Law (2008), 71; M. Craven, M. Fitzmaurice, and M. Vogiatzi (eds.), Time, History and International Law (2007).

10 Friedmann, W., ‘The Disintegration of European Civilization and the Future of International Law’, (1938) 11 Modern Law Review 194CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The subsequent years were indeed ‘to morality what the supercollider is to physics: extreme moral experiences and observations emerged out of the high-energy clashes’. A. Margalit, On Compromise and Rotten Compromise (2009), 96.

11 These origins are now revisited in M. Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations (2009).

12 See J. von Bernstorff, The Public International Law Theory of Hans Kelsen: Believing in International Law (2010).

13 For recent literature see supra note 2.

14 S. Choudhry (ed.), The Migration of Constitutional Ideas (2006).

15 Symposium issue on ‘constitutional borrowing’, (2003) 1 International Journal of Constitutional Law 177; S. Choudhry, ‘Migration as a New Metaphor in Comparative Constitutional Law’, in Choudhry, supra note 14, 1, at 20–1; Tebbe, N. and Tsai, R. L., ‘Constitutional Borrowing’, (2010) 108 Michigan Law Review 459Google Scholar.

16 Halberstam, D. and Stein, E., ‘The United Nations, the European Union and the King of Sweden: Economic Sanctions and Individual Rights in a Plural World Order’, (2009) 46 Common Market Law Review 13, at 24Google Scholar.

17 N. Walker, ‘Reframing EU Constitutionalism’, in Dunoff and Trachtmann, supra note 2, 149; Pernice, I., ‘The Treaty of Lisbon: Multilevel Constitutionalism in Action’, (2009) 15 Columbia Journal of European Law 349Google Scholar.

18 Avbelj, M., ‘Questioning EU Constitutionalisms’, (2008) 9 German Law Journal 1Google Scholar; Ley, I., Kant versus Locke: Europarechtlicher und völkerrechtlicher Konstitutionalismus im Vergleich’, (2009) 69 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 317Google Scholar; D. Halberstam, ‘Local, Global, and Plural Constitutionalism: Europe Meets the World’, in G. de Búrca and J. H. H. Weiler (eds.), The Worlds of European Constitutionalism (forthcoming).

19 See, on these two constitutional traditions and drawing substantially from the thought of Hannah Arendt, C. Möllers, ‘Pouvoir Constituant – Constitution – Constitutionalisation’, in A. v. Bogdandy and J. Bast (eds.), Principles of European Constitutional Law (2009), 169.

20 D. Halberstam, ‘Constitutional Heterarchy: The Centrality of Conflict in the European Union and the United States’, in Dunoff and Trachtmann, supra note 2, 326; M. Maduro, ‘Courts and Pluralism: Essay on a Theory of Judicial Adjudication in the Context of Legal and Constitutional Pluralism’, in Dunoff and Trachtmann, supra note 2, 356.

21 J. H. H. Weiler, ‘In Defence of the Status Quo: Europe's Constitutional Sonderweg’, in J. H. H. Weiler and M. Wind (eds.), European Constitutionalism beyond the State (2003), 7; see also J. H. H. Weiler, The Constitution of Europe: ‘Do the New Clothes Have an Emperor?’ and Other Essays on European Integration (1999).

22 Some authors would simply label that constellation as ‘postnational’, bypassing the lasting presence and importance of the ‘national’, as stressed in S. Sassen, Territory – Authority – Rights (2006).

23 M. Loughlin and N. Walker (eds.), The Paradox of Constitutionalism: Constituent Power and Constitutional Form (2007).

24 Weiler, J. H. H., ‘The Geology of International Law – Governance, Democracy and Legitimacy’, (2004) 64 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 547Google Scholar; E. Stein, ‘International Integration and Democracy: No Love at First Sight’, (2001) 95 AJIL 489.

25 See, regarding the supranational EU plane, K. J. Alter, The European Court's Political Power (2009); Alter, Establishing the Supremacy of European Law: The Making of an International Rule of Law in Europe (2001); A. Stone Sweet, The Judicial Construction of Europe (2004); and, of course, the groundbreaking E. Stein, ‘Lawyers, Judges, and the Making of a Transnational Constitution’, (1981) 75 AJIL 1.

26 Loughlin, supra note 1, at 68.

27 G. Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (1998); F. Ost, Le droit comme traduction (2009); see also Ost, Traduire. Defense et illustration du multilinguisme (2009).

28 ‘Mitteilung ist die erste und darum entscheidende Realitätsgewinnung des rein Gedachten. Mitteilung steht in der Mitte zwischen Denken und Handeln, weil beides ohne sie nicht wäre. Sie weist sofort nach beiden Seiten.’ H. Arendt, Denktagebuch. 1950 bis 1973. Erster Band, ed. Ursula Ludz and Ingeborg Nordmann (2002), 67.

29 (Emphasis in original.) I borrow this notion from Hauke Brunkhorst's pluralist reading of Arendt's reference to Burke in H. Arendt, ‘Truth and Politics’, in Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (2006 [1954]), 223.