Introduction and conclusions

Abstract

This Introduction summarizes the contents and explains the methodology of the book and of its main policy conclusions on how constitutional democracies should respond to the increasing governance failures inside and beyond states. All UN member states have employed constitutional law for providing national public goods (pgs) such as protection of the environment; they also participate in multilateral treaties of a higher legal rank and multilevel governance institutions for protecting transnational pgs such as UN rules and institutions for the protection of the environment and human rights. However, international treaty commitments are often not effectively implemented inside UN member states, for instance if UN member states prioritize national communitarian values over internationally binding agreements (e.g. in Anglo-Saxon democracies with parliamentary supremacy); or if they continue being governed by authoritarian governments insisting on the UN Charter principle of ‘sovereign equality of states’ even if multilateral treaties and human and democratic rights are not effectively protected by governments. The 2030 UN Sustainable Development Agenda (sda) emphasizes the need for international cooperation in protecting 17 universally agreed sustainable development goals (sdgs) based on respect for human rights, democratic governance and rule-of-law. Yet, these ‘constitutional principles’ and sdgs are not effectively protected inside and among many UN member states, especially if their domestic legal systems fail to subject foreign policy powers to effective constitutional restraints.