Global migration yields political shifts of historical significance, profoundly shaking up world politics as manifested by the European refugee crisis, the Brexit referendum, and throughout the US election. The refugee crisis—which, from a human rights perspective, is first and foremost a crisis of protection—has enhanced the already-existing discussion on justifiable and unjustifiable attempts by nation-states to safeguard their constitutional “essentials” by reinforcing border controls and using selective immigration and citizenship policies. How can liberal states, or a supranational Union formed by such states, welcome immigrants and treat refugees as future denizens without fundamentally changing their constitutional identity, forsaking their liberal tradition, or slipping into populist nationalism? This question is one of the greatest contemporary challenges in constitutional law and theory nowadays.

The notion of constitutional identity is a recent and enigmatic notion in constitutional law and theory. This Article demonstrates that constitutional identity—understood as a certain constitution-related self-identity of a nation or people—can be constructed from the text of a constitution, its interpretation and its application. However, constitutional identity is nothing more and nothing less than a constructed reality that can be regarded as a constitutional state's restless soul. It exists only as a constructed, simplified, imagined reality that will most likely also be contested and subject to change. Constitutional identity and the reliance on it in particular by national courts should therefore not be regarded as something sacred and absolute that can be compared to an imagined stable heart. Instead, constitutional identity should be treated with caution.

This Article consists of five sections. In the first section, it describes why identity questions matter, particularly in Europe. In the second section, the Article tackles the issue of multiple structural ambiguities affecting the concept of constitutional identity in the European constitutional vocabulary. In the third section, the Article explores trends concerning the use of constitutional identity in the European legal discourse and practice, including the development of alternative interpretations and applications of the notion of constitutional identities in the Member States. The fourth section of the Article combines the analytical accounts outlined in the second section with the trends identified in the third section, contending that different conceptions and applications of constitutional identity have varying effects on the European composite constitutional adjudication system and that the institutional and procedural framework should be calibrated accordingly. The final section of this Article draws some conclusions.

It is a long-established commonplace in any debate on immigration that immigrants should integrate into their receiving society. But integrate into what precisely? Into the labor market, into the legal order, into the political system, into a national culture whatever this might comprise? The Article tries to approach the question from the legal point of view and looks for hints or clues in the constitution which might help us with the answer. For this purpose, it explores the general theory of the constitution as it has been shaped by its professional interpreters as well as by political actors, the media and the public. The main intuition is that “constitution” is not only a written document, a text with a predefined, though maybe hidden meaning; instead, it is a social practice evolving over time and thereby reflecting the shared convictions of a political community of what is just and right. Talking about constitutional expectations toward immigrants then also tells us something about ourselves: about who we are and what kind of community we want to live in. As it turns out, we may not have a very clear idea of that.

The relationship between immigration and constitutional identity is simultaneously obvious and evasive. This Article explores that relationship through a comparative case study of Italy and Canada. It begins with a conceptual analysis of the role of immigration against the backdrop of collective identity, constitutional identity, and constitutional subjectivity. The metaphor of immigration as a mirror of constitutional identity orients this analysis. Then, an empirical comparison of the role of immigration in Italy and Canada demonstrates the very different place of immigration in national and constitutional narratives of “self” and “other.” Yet, when the lens is widened to include their recent startup visa programs, their narratives start to converge as the new metonymy of innovation makes an appearance. This convergence marks a conceptual shift in constitutional identity: From immigration as mirror to immigration as display. As a tool of attraction for innovators, immigration law has both internal and external dimensions, which reverberate with implications for constitutional identity. Ultimately, the startup visa programs enlarge the constitutional “us” and make constitutional subjectivity more fluid.

The debate on the exact meaning and content of their constitutional identity has a long history in many European countries, with national courts playing the leading role. Ten years ago, this debate was given a new boost by the Treaty on European Union (TEU), article 4 paragraph 2 of which urges the European Union to respect the constitutional identities of the Member States. The national courts in a number of Member States saw in this provision the recognition of their zealous efforts to control the ongoing expansion of EU competences and to overcome the absolute primacy of EU law over domestic constitutional law. In Greece, however, no debate on the possible use of constitutional identity as a limit to the European Union and its law had taken place—at least not until recently. Our main objective in this article is to try to explain why Greek courts, and especially the Symvoulion Epikrateias, the supreme administrative court, failed to develop and make recourse to a notion of constitutional identity, even in cases they had good reasons to do so, and to find out if—and, if yes, to what extent—the situation has changed after the outbreak of the financial and, soon after, the migration crises. The analysis of the relevant case-law will permit us to conclude that the Greek constitutional identity is currently still under construction and that it is constructed using elements from both the liberal and the exclusionist models.

The recent trend in East Central European jurisprudence is that courts apply an ethnocultural understanding of identity, thereby putting European integration in peril. Although the EU is clearly committed to shared values and principles, Article 4(2) of the Treaty on European Union emphasizes that “the Union shall respect the national identities of the Member States.” Due to the recent migration flow in Europe, the Member States are currently attempting to (re)define themselves and offer a legal definition of identity. East Central European Member States, by labelling ethnocultural national identity as constitutional identity, apply Article 4(2) as a means of derogating from some of their obligations under EU law. Despite the vast literature available on national identity and its role in EU law, little attention has been paid to the recently emerging trend of judicial reinvention of identity in East Central Europe. This is what this Article offers. It focuses on the Visegrád Group, which consists of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The Visegrád countries (V4) are united in their views on rejecting migrant relocation quotas in the EU and define their exclusionary constitutional identities accordingly. The main subject of the Article is the relevant case law of the V4 constitutional courts. These courts have the authoritative role in enforcing nation-state policies based upon ethnocultural considerations. The Article provides a comparative-analytical description of the judicial interpretations of constitutional identity in these countries based on which we can better understand the recent East Central European trend of disintegration.

There is an increasing, or increasingly visible, societal trend in the EU and beyond—often followed by constitutional changes—that challenges inclusive constitutional values. The discourses underlying these changes emphasize the inviolability of national identity and redefine it with a strong reliance on exclusive constitutional values. This Article asserts that exclusive constitutional values—that are defined as values that question the moral equality of some members of the community—necessarily shrink the room for inclusive values, and a critical mass of exclusive values can lead to a hallowing out of a democratic order, both on the national and on the supranational level. The Article presents Hungary as a case where the populist-exclusivist elements of political rhetoric—that are also present elsewhere—became part of constitutional law and have transformed the political system. The case study shows how the redefinition of Member States' constitutional identities, along recent societal trends and exclusive constitutional values, could clash with the inclusive values of the European Union and relegate European institutions to the position of “the Other,” thereby endangering constitutional democracy. In particular, the Article shows how the rule praising and recognizing diverse Member State constitutional identities can work to embolden the already strong trend to challenge inclusive constitutional values.

A four-year-old Muslim boy was brought to a local Cologne emergency room by his mother, who was concerned about minor bleeding around the site of a circumcision. A District Court there found that circumcision, notwithstanding parental consent or religious motivation, constituted a criminal bodily injury and child abuse. Ultimately, on July 19, 2012 the Bundestag resolved that “Jewish and Muslim religious life be viable in Germany,” and in December a bill was passed that legislatively overrode the ruling of the District Court and recognized circumcision as a non-punishable undertaking when undertaken for religious reasons by someone professionally trained. Two years of rancorous debate revealed a whole range of historical and contemporary fissures. This essay examines the dynamics of the debate and its various outcomes. In particular it asks whether the conflicts generated by practices like male circumcision can in immigrant societies be assimilated to prevailing religious freedom models. The key questions aired were: (1) Germany's relations with its Muslim immigrants; (2) Germany's relations with its fragile Jewish minority; (3) proper weightings of the relationship among parents, child, and state; and (4) the deference owed medical thinking. Immigrant integration, religious freedom, group rights, and the meaning of “enlightenment” all remain sharply contested.

How would Denmark react to a wave of mass immigration, numbering several million people, from Germany? The question is, needless to say, purely hypothetical—so much so that one may wonder whether posing it, as a thought experiment, can shed any light on real-life issues and controversies on immigration and integration. I would argue that it can, in some ways precisely because the imaginary case is so far removed from what actually happens. It can thus provide an opportunity for addressing some fundamental issues of immigration and modern nation state without the “distraction” caused by the context in which scholarly and public discussions on immigration—at any rate, in the West—are usually conducted.

In 2016, the UN's General Assembly called for the negotiation of a Global Compact on Safe, Orderly, and Regulation Migration to be adopted in 2018. The consultations began at the start of 2017 and the negotiations began six months later. Yet, it is uncertain what a Global Compact on Migration should include and what it should look like. What should be the key objectives of a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration? In this Article I examine the issue which the UN seeks to address through an analysis of the three problems: Unsafe migration, disorderly migration, and irregular migration.

This Article examines some central questions concerning the status of EU foreigners—non-EU nationals legally residing in the EU. First, it addresses the peculiarities of the status of EU citizens and the special nature of EU immigration law as the basis for the construction of an EU alienage law. Second, it examines whether and to what extent the emergence of a supranational immigration and alienage law—with a focus on integration—interacts with the broader debate on European and national constitutional identity. Third, the Article analyzes the legal difficulties for the application of the equal treatment principle between EU citizens and EU foreigners taking as a point of reference the different roles of restrictions and conditions based on the notion of integration.