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Book review
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The Constitutionalization of International Law.
The Constitutionalization of International Law. By Jan Klabbers, Anne Peters, and Geir Ulfstein. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. xx, 393. Index. $120.00, 60.00 [pounds sterling].
It is sometimes jokingly related that a professor in Germany boasted to a visiting British professor that "We have the best Constitution in the world," to which the latter replied: "Well, you need it." Does the international community need or already have, or is it at least in the process of developing, a "constitutional" legal framework? Is current international law best explained in constitutional terms? If so, just how would that be done? In The Constitutionalization of International Law, Jan Klabbers, Anne Peters, and Geir Ulfstein--of the Universities of Helsinki, Basel, and Oslo, respectively--seek to provide insights into what are, from a constitutional perspective, the most challenging problems of today's international law. Before reading the book I would have sided with the British professor, and the book has not changed my mind. Nevertheless, the book is no doubt an outstanding, thought-provoking contribution to the ongoing constitutional debate concerning international law. The process of so-called international constitutionalization has been conspicuously on the rise in the last decades. It is generally associated with the subjection of international power to limits and controls. Hence the need for supervision, transparency, and equal participation of all those affected by international lawmaking and decision making, as well as for the rule of ...See the full content of this document
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