Constitutional pluralism as political driver for multipolar re-ordering of international legal systems
| dc.contributor.author | PETERSMANN, Ernst-Ulrich | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-06-20T10:18:16Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-06-20T10:18:16Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Systems theories emphasize the evolution of legal systems through dynamic interactions between rules, governance institutions, legal practices and ‘lawfare’ challenging pathdependent principles. The UN and WTO legal systems had been designed by and for democracies with market economies. The accession of state-capitalist countries to the WTO, wars of aggression violating UN law, trade wars disrupting the WTO legal system, military aggression among WTO members, climate change and global health pandemics challenge foundational rules and principles of UN and WTO law. Constitutional theories explain why ‘governance failures’ are often made possible by constitutionally unconstrained power monopolies in authoritarian states and executive abuses of foreign policy discretion under national Constitutions (like ‘emergency governance’ through ‘presidential orders’ of President Trump); multilevel constitutional constraints can protect ‘strict observance of international law’ as prescribed in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union. The article explores how diverse constitutions drive diverse ‘international legal policies.’ It elaborates ten propositions explaining legal practices driving geopolitical rivalries. Countermeasures responding to authoritarian and neoliberal violations of multilateral treaty systems promote dialectic processes clarifying (e.g. by judicial treaty interpretations) and transforming international legal systems (e.g. through plurilateral agreements on WTO interim arbitration procedures, carbon border adjustment measures aimed at higher carbon reduction commitments complementing the Paris Agreement on Climate Change Mitigation, unilateral security measures). | |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | |
| dc.identifier.issn | 1725-6739 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1814/92846 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | European University Institute | |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | EUI | |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | LAW | |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | Working Paper | |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | 2025/06 | |
| dc.rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess | |
| dc.rights.license | Attribution 4.0 International | |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
| dc.subject | Constitutionalism | |
| dc.subject | Regulatory competition | |
| dc.subject | International legal policies | |
| dc.subject | Lawfare | |
| dc.subject | UN | |
| dc.subject | WTO | |
| dc.title | Constitutional pluralism as political driver for multipolar re-ordering of international legal systems | |
| dc.type | Working Paper | |
| dspace.entity.type | Publication | |
| person.identifier.other | 26650 | |
| relation.isAuthorOfPublication | 01197231-897a-431b-a467-bf0eabbb83a8 | |
| relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery | 01197231-897a-431b-a467-bf0eabbb83a8 |
