Year L, 2008, Number 2, Page 131
SOVEREIGNTY AND THE EUROPEAN FEDERAL CONSTITUTION — NEW PERSPECTIVES ON SOVEREIGNTY IN A MULTILEVEL SCHEME OF CONSTITUTIONALISM
I. Introduction, First Thesis: Multilevel Constitutionalism Requires Shared Sovereignties.
“Sovereignty and federalism are”, write D. Chalmers and others in their treatise on European Union law, “as politically sensitive as they are legally central to the European project”.[1] For sake of an “ever closer Union,” both qualify not only as fundamental but also as constitutional principles in the ongoing process of European integration. The Treaty of Lisbon might have abandoned the term “constitution” (as ambitious as it was programmatic), but it has not abandoned the constitutional quality (D.T. Tsatsos) of its basic rules.[2] To use a classical Latin phrase: “Falsa demonstratio non nocet.” The newly shaped three-part treaty, which includes the legally binding EU Charter on Fundamental Rights, re-introduces a constitutional scheme for the Union.[3] As a result of this constitutional momentum, the strict demarcation line between international and constitutional law has been blurred.
All this is quite a tremendous shift compared to the early stages of European integration. Then, it was widely assumed that the traditional model of international law would apply to the European Communities, too.[4] The member states were held to be the only “masters of the treaties”. However, in its Van Gend en Loos[5] and Costa v. ENEL[6] decisions the ECJ clearly overturned these assumptions. The following expression, emerging during the Van Gend en Loos case, became famous: “a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights”.[7] The Court shaped its doctrine even more radically in the Costa ruling, according to which EC regulations were directly applicable in all member states and thus EC law enjoyed some form of sovereignty vis-à-vis domestic law. Clearly, this being the case, the Community’s powers could not be seen as deriving exclusively from the member states but had to be understood as being “somehow autonomous and original”.[8] Hence, the aforementioned European treaties are more than ordinary international treaties. What makes them “more” is the “transformation” (J.J. Weiler) of formerly closed nation-states into an integrated Union and the consequent sharing of sovereignties[9] between the Union and its member states.[10]
Compared to the traditional concept of sovereignty,[11] the idea of shared sovereignties might seem quite provocative. Clearly inspired by J. Bodin,[12] the French Constitution of September 3, 1791 reads: “La Souveraineté est une, indivisible, inaliénable et imprescriptible; elle appartient à la Nation; aucune section du peuple, ni aucun individu, ne peut s’en attribuer l’exercice”.[13] Bodin’s view was that sovereignty is not bound by the law, but confers the power to create new laws and thus to overcome the old feudal system. The new “princeps” was “legibus solutus”.[14] Only natural and divine law could restrict his powers. In its turn, the 1791 constitution was to overcome another “ancien régime”, replacing the sovereignty of the “princeps” with the sovereignty of the nation. This development, making provision for nothing less than a new source of legitimacy,[15] shows that understanding of sovereignty depends on the specific historical context of ever-changing political orders:[16] feudalism, the Westphalian system of 1648, constitutionalism, emerging democracies, and today’s global governance structures,[17] which comprise both state and non-state subjects.[18] Widespread tendencies to treat sovereignty as some mystical absolute[19] are thus to be resisted for a very obvious reason: they are ahistorical and disregard the intrinsic procedural structures of political order building.[20] Political entities are not static. On the contrary, they are based on a permanent process of self-creation.[21] In the same way, sovereignty, at once depending on and to an extent creating the relevant political entity, is in a permanent state of flux.
Thus, sovereignty today, inasmuch as it helped to build, further and strengthen the very process of integration, corresponds to the European scheme of integrated political entities.[22] “Multilevel constitutionalism” is the term most commonly used to describe the many-layered structure this process has produced.[23] Others speak of constitutional pluralism.[24] Multilevel constitutionalism refers to an “ongoing process of establishing new structures of government complementary to and building upon — while also changing — existing forms of self-organistion of the people or society”.[25] The most important parameters of this “ongoing process” include the extent of voluntary relinquishing of sovereignty to international organisations and to the respective inter-governmental bodies, the appearance and growing influence of non-state actors, and, not least, the continued viability of the nation-state. The question of the legitimacy of this sharing of sovereignty between national, European and international levels is linked to a key aspect of political integration: the common good.[26] The division is legitimate if, and to the extent to which, the authority thus divided can maximise the common good. Multilevel constitutionalism demands shared sovereignties to allow all the actors involved to cooperate in their service of the common good.
Finally, it should not be forgotten that shared sovereignties are not unknown either to classical public international law or to traditional constitutional thought. The scope for dividing sovereignty was already recognised by Grotius: “While sovereignty is a unity, in itself indivisible, (…) and including the highest degree of authority, which is not accountable to any one; nevertheless a division is sometimes made (…). Thus, while the sovereignty of Rome was a unity, yet it often happened that one emperor administered the East, another the West, or even three emperors governed the whole empire in three divisions.”[27] Grotiusgives another ancient example of divided sovereignty, going back to Plato’s third book of Laws. This reference might well work as a paradigm for today’s integrated Europe as a two-pillar Union of the states and the peoples (see, for example, Art. 1 TEU): “Since the Heraclids had founded Agros, Messene, and Sparta, the kings of these states were bound to govern within the provisions of the laws which had been laid down; so long as they should do so, the peoples were bound to leave the royal power in the hands of the kings themselves and their successors, and not allow any one to take it away from them. To this end, then, not only did the peoples bind themselves to their kings, and the kings to their peoples, but also the kings bound themselves to one another, and peoples to one another. Further, the kings bound themselves to neighboring peoples, and the peoples to neighboring kings, and they promised to render aid, each to the other.”[28]
Let us move from Ancient Greece to recent judgements of the US Supreme Court. In Alden v. Main the Court relied on the federal theory of dual sovereignty: “Congress has vast power but not all power. When Congress legislates in matters affecting the states, it may not treat these sovereign entities as mere prefectures or corporations. Congress must accord states the esteem due to them as joint participants in a federal system, one beginning with the premise of sovereignty in both the central government and the separate states.”[29]
II. Further Elaboration of the First Thesis and the Second Thesis: A Modern Scheme of Sovereignty Requires an Integrated Approach, Taking into Account the National, European and International Dimensions.
As we have seen, the term sovereignty itself has a long and troubled history.[30] Sovereignty is a sociological category as well as a legal concept,[31] and in both cases it is related to the question of political identity.[32] Among various meanings, sovereignty is most commonly “used as a description of statehood; a brief term for the state’s attribute of more-or-less plenary competence”.[33] Nevertheless, sovereignty is no longer an exclusive attribute of the nation-state; instead it is expressed by interdependent emanations at different levels: national, European, and international.[34]
1. The development of sovereignty in the traditional state-centred context is very well known;[35] from 1648 on, one might speak of a “Westphalian constellation”.[36] The personal sovereignty of the liege lord in feudal systems was superseded by the sovereignty of the “princeps” in absolute monarchies. The sovereignty of the “princeps”, in turn, was replaced by the sovereignty of the people[37] — sometimes conceived of as the sovereignty of the nation, and in the French tradition also as the sovereignty of the republic. In England, the absolute monarchy was replaced by the sovereignty of Parliament. As Chris Patten put it, “The theory of absolute monarchy never recovered from the blow that struck off Charles I’s head. Parliamentary sovereignty was on the rise. The Bill of Rights in 1689 asserted that it was illegal for the king to pretend the power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws… without consent of Parliament. Parliament alone, then, was sovereign. And that sovereignty was no longer an expression of the will of God, but the will of the people.”[38]
In the light of the established doctrine of popular or parliamentary sovereignty, the transferring of sovereign rights to a supranational level[39] might easily be mistaken for an infringement of the very basis of the entity’s legitimacy. However, it would not constitute an infringement for two reasons, one formal and the other, more important, functional. Formally, it is within the sovereign power of Parliament and the people to forfeit voluntarily their sovereign rights and competences — at least to some extent. Functionally, sovereignty is not a means in itself but rather a means of serving the political entity’s crucial objectives: external and internal peace, including territorial integrity; freedom, including both fundamental rights and fundamental freedoms as well as political independence and the self-determination of the people;[40] and security, including the authority to create and enforce law. All of these objectives can be pursued by the nation-state or, even more effectively, by nation-states cooperating with each other, eventually institutionalising this cooperation through the formation of international or supranational organisations endowed with sovereign rights of their own.
2. The supranational Community and, in the future, the supranational Union is not a replacement for the nation-state but rather a pre-federal integrative mechanism for transforming the latter from a self-contained entity into a cooperative and open political entity.[41] In the process of this transformation the people involved (or better, the citizens concerned), by giving up sovereign rights, regain the power of sovereign self-determination and self-organisation — a “win-win-situation”. Certainly, given the intrinsic dynamics of transformation and integration, the national political entities are no longer the exclusive “masters of the treaty”. And neither is the Community or the Union. The “masters”, should this term be maintained at all, are the citizens in their dual capacity as nationals and citizens of the Union. The principle of conferral, restricting both national and “European” sovereignty, is the instrument for fulfilling this dual role.
The European Court of Justice, by subjugating national high courts and legislators to the autonomous legal order of the Community, thereby also challenging the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, might very well have compromised national legal practices.[42] However, what has been compromised finds compensation not only through functional necessity but also through the democratisation of decision-making processes at European level.[43] The primacy of EU law[44] is counterbalanced by the aforementioned principle of conferral. The principle of mutual fidelity, according to which “each level and unit of government must act to ensure the proper functioning of the system of governance as a whole”,[45] makes provision for a pre-federal balancing structure of its own. The doctrine of pre-emption,[46] which gives the Community exclusive legislative competences, is counterbalanced by shared competences (typical of federal systems) exercised through supporting, coordinating, and complementary actions, and, of course, by the exclusive competences of the member states in areas in which any kind of harmonisation is prohibited. All these examples illustrate what shared sovereignties and European rule of law thinking have in common: a vertical balance of powers.
3. The European structure just described is not paralleled, although it is to some extent reflected, at international level.[47] When “the combined impact of technology, tourism, global capitalism, deterritorialized communities and migration are blurring and redrawing cultural boundaries at a rapid rate”[48] and simultaneously bringing about a shift from “coexistence” to “cooperation” in public international law,[49] international regimes will need to have some constituent power or constitutional quality in order to justify, limit, and organise their specific cooperative governance. This is not to be confused with the quest for exclusive sovereign power, which even the UN Security Council would not be able to attain. It is, rather, the quest for decision-making authority vested either in international bodies or in the international community as such. Many examples can be found in WTO law regulating the integrated and interconnected global economy; and in UN law, especially with regard to the powers of the Security Council under chapter VII, e.g. the new “smart sanction” mechanism[50] (see also the Yusuf decision of the Court of First Instance).[51] Additionally, sovereignty today is not only a source of sovereign rights but also entails certain responsibilities, in particular duties of protection towards other states.[52] The most significant example of this re-definition of the traditional concept of sovereignty, however, is provided by so-called humanitarian intervention, which might be summed up as human rights-based “international sovereignty” as opposed to human rights-disregarding “national sovereignty”.[53]
4. The debate about humanitarian intervention draws attention to the common roots of national, European, and international sovereignty. Sovereignty is to be understood instrumentally as the supreme authority of a political entity to ensure and enforce a human rights-based legal order.[54] The only original sovereignty, not derived from another sovereign source, is the sovereignty of the individual human being. In the Tadic case, the Appeals Chamber of the International Yugoslavian Tribunal explicitly stated: “A state-sovereignty approach has been gradually supplanted by a human-being-oriented approach”.[55] Politically, this latter approach to sovereignty resembles the “sovereignty of the citizen”,[56] an area in which the EU is quite advanced. In substance and in procedure, EC and EU law effectively stands for the empowerment of individual citizens vis-à-vis their governments. The sovereign citizen has been turned into one of the most important enforcers of international agreements.[57] In classical public international law, it was Emmerich de Vattel who based his sovereignty theory on republican principles of individual freedom and equality. His argument was that since all men are naturally equal, and on the strength of this natural equality have equal rights as well as equal obligations, nations comprised of men must be equal, too. They have inherited the same obligations and rights from nature, or, to use a modern phrase, they have inherited their sovereign equality as an emanation of the natural law decreeing the equal freedom of their individual citizens.[58] “The very rationale that supports the sovereign equality of states,” remarks M. Sellers, “implies the sovereign equality of citizens, too”.[59]
III. Contextualisation, Part 1: A Modern Scheme of Sovereignty Requires a Cultural Framework (Culture of Cooperation).
Law must be understood in context[60] and the same applies to sovereignty, given that it is a legal concept. A concept of sovereignty in and for Europe cannot ignore the fact that Europe itself is more than just a geographical area; indeed, it is, primarily, a culturally moulded area. From the very origins of western legal thought and throughout all the subsequent epochs (e.g. the Holy Roman Empire), there has always been a more or less present but always genuine awareness that Europe, beyond its states and peoples, is a political entity requiring legal consideration and, most recently, even the creation, on a transnational and supranational level, of a constitutional structure.[61] This awareness of unity[62] has many facets: social, cultural, economic, and political, as well as religious, revolutionary and evolutionary. It is deeply rooted in the traditions of ancient Roman law with its Ciceronian notions of “res publica” and “salus publica”. Finally, it is an awareness based upon a common Age of Enlightenment narrative: on human rights universalism and rule of law thinking. Cooperative Europe is like a model of “unity in diversity” (J.C. Burckhardt), and it is eager to overcome, step by step, its division into nation-states yet without sacrificing the states’ political, that is to say national, identities. The image of “the House of Europe” — a reference to the classical Greek “oikos” philosophy — depicts well the richness of heterorganic, asymmetrical political entities, which ought to be assembled under a common roof.[63] The cooperative architecture of the European house corresponds to the aforementioned multilevel constitutionalism, a term not meant to bring to mind a structure of hierarchically organised constitutional levels but rather one of intertwining and thus interdependent elements linking the national and the European constitutional settings (national constitutions, constitutional elements within the EU Treaty, the EC Treaty, the European Convention on Human Rights or the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union).[64]
Multilevel constitutionalism demands a culture of cooperation.[65] Two elements must be present: cooperation among member states and coordination of their constituent laws. If either is lacking, influential international political entities with the capacity to act become inconceivable. Cooperation materialises in legal, political, factual and normative ways. However, effective cooperation has many prerequisites. It demands, at least, a clear allocation of competences, basic human rights standards among the cooperating subjects, and a certain democratic legitimacy of the political decisions stemming from the cooperation itself. Given these premises, the conclusion is simple: 1. Cooperation demands that sovereign rights be shared between the cooperating entities (or subjects). 2. Each sovereign right requires a basis of legitimacy. As regards the legitimacy question, it is necessary to consider not only the input of democratic legitimacy, but also the functional or result-oriented aspects that derive from it: effective task fulfilment through collaboration, sharing of responsibilities, the assignment of competences to the political entity or societal actor best equipped to fulfil the task and, finally, a general convergence of interests, are all basic elements of the cooperation principle. In accordance with the subsidiarity principle, the smaller entity shall remain responsible as long as there emerges no need (e.g. economic, environmental, political, or security-related) for a joint cooperative action. In the context of globalisation and internationalisation, cooperation will increase the scope of political decision-making possibilities at local and regional level, respectively. The individual is able to accept the world beyond the state only if she or he can feel “at home” in the familiar setting of local, that is to say, small-scale, political entities. Understood in such a way, the major aim of cooperation is integration.
IV. Contextualisation, Part II: (National) Sovereignty and Supranationality Need to be Understood as Complementary Functions of European Integration.
If cooperation, on the one hand, is meant to serve integration and, on the other, is made possible by shared sovereignties, then national sovereignty itself can be understood as a specific complementary function of, and not an obstacle to, European integration. Both, national sovereignty and supranationality — being expressions of non-state-centred sovereignty[66] — interact to make integration possible and to make integrated political systems work. The functions of sovereignty are well known:
– to guarantee external peace and security, in accordance with Art. 2(4) UN Charter, which reflects the intention of the Briand-Kellog Pact to abolish recourse to war as an instrument of national policy,
– to guarantee internal peace and security by linking security with freedom,
– to guarantee freedom and equality, i.e., fundamental human rights,
– to guarantee a minimum standard of living, without which the citizens would not be able to enjoy their freedoms, fulfil their duties, or exercise their rights,
– to guarantee fair enforcement of the law (John Rawls’ idea of pro-cedural justice as fairness),
– to ensure effective distribution of competences in accordance with the principle of subisdiarity.[67]
There is another function of sovereignty which might seem slightly paradoxical. However, it is a core function: sovereignty must reflect critically upon its (sometimes changing) sources of legitimacy. This is all the more important when and where EU law takes precedence over the law, including the constitutional law,[68] of the member states.[69] Here, finally, a reference should be made to the reflections of Chalmers and others on the execution and administration of EU law by domestic governments: “For the primacy of EU law to remain effective, therefore, it generally needs to retain the goodwill of the Member states. If EU law is deemed unreasonable, states have the means to evade its requirements. If states unreasonably seek to evade measures of EU law, however, they risk the censure of other states (and even of their own citizens) for disrespect of a legal text. In this sense, sovereignty in the European Union may be seen as circular or at least paradoxical. EU law needs to justify itself as reasonable, while a state seeking to disapply EU law must likewise justify its action as reasonable. This cycle of justification, where, ideally, power is never taken for granted, but where its exercise must always be justified is, (…) one of the most distinctive and one the most civilising features of EU law.”[70]
Conclusions and Future Perspectives.
Today, the United States of Europe, as idealistically conceptualised by W. Churchill in his famous 1946 Zurich speech, is an unrealistic vision, supported neither by the majority of the EU member states nor by the majority of the EU citizens.[71] Regardless of all pre-federal elements,[72] particularly the fidelity principle (Art. 10 TEC),[73] a European federacy, along the lines of the U.S. example, was not envisaged by the failed European Constitutional Treaty,[74] and was envisaged even less so by the Treaty of Lisbon (Reform Treaty). The constitutional architecture of the integrated Europe will continue to be a mixture of principles of constitutional law and principles of public international law, as well as a mixture of federalisation and confederation,[75] a dynamic process in which the emphasis is sometimes placed on the federal, and sometimes on the confederal elements. This so-called open finality could be a weakness; on the other hand, it could prove to be a strength, a force ensuring that the sovereign nation-states are not simply be replaced by another — bigger — sovereign entity[76] but rather embedded in a structure of intertwined sovereignties. This is an entaglement that can best be likened to the multi-layered governance structures of the 21st century, which exist at both regional and global level.
1. Within this structured entanglement, sovereignty emerges not as an absolute but as a relative category. Oriented by the common good, it functions as a guiding principle for the distribution of shared competences and responsibilities. In accordance with the principle of subisdiarity,[77] the entity that is best equipped to decide shall be vested with all necessary powers and shall assume all responsibilities resulting thereof.
2. Thus, sovereignty also corresponds to governance structures.[78] This is particularly true with regard to the legitimacy question. Whoever governs needs to exercise legitimate power. Governance is not justified in itself but needs to be linked to legitimate sources of sovereign authority.
3. The legitimacy question also leads to a human rights-based understanding of sovereignty as described above. Sovereignty is not a means in itself but is to be understood as instrumental in the service of thefreedom, equality, subsistence and security of the individual. Sovereignty exists — and here we introduce an obvious allusion to F.D. Roosevelt’s famous “Four Freedoms” speech (January 7, 1941) — to establish a world order founded upon the essential freedoms of the human being.[79]
4. Sovereignty is not a static concept. It demands a procedural understanding that takes into account the dramatic changes the international community faces in times of globalisation, internationalisation, and European integration.[80]
5. Sovereignty is, and has always been, based upon freedom, secured externally by the notion of sovereign equality, non-intervention and first and foremost by Art. 2(4) UN Charter; and secured internally by popular sovereignty understood as freedom of the citizens in rebus politicis.[81]
Regardless of how a future political entity will be structured, as long as it is founded on freedom, an “end of sovereignty” will not be in sight.[82] However, the concept of sovereignty will remain permanently in a state of transformation, and the idea(l) of “shared sovereignties” emerges as a sustainable “modus vivendi/modus gubernandi” — within and beyond the European Union.
Markus Kotzur
[1] D. Chalmers, C. Hadjiemmanuil, G. Monti, A. Tomkins, European Union Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 182; for further references, see N. Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003; K. Nicolaidis, R. Howse (eds), The Federal Vision: Legitimacy and Levels of Governance in the United States and the European Union, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000; see also J.-P. Jaqué, “Der Vertrag über eine Verfassung für Europa: Konstitutionalisierung oder Vertragsrevision?” Europäische Grundrechte-Zeitschrift, 2004, p. 551.
[2] On the constitutional elements of EU and EC law, seeA. von Bogdandy, “Constitutional Principles”, in A. von Bogdandy, J. Bast (eds), Principles of European Constitutional Law, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2006, p. 3.
[3] There is a large body of literature on these issues. See, for example, J. Geerlings, “Der Europäische Verfassungsprozess nach den gescheiterten Referenden in Frankreich und den Niederlanden”, Deutsches Verwaltungsblatt, 2006, p. 129; H.M. Heinig, “Europäisches Verfassungsrecht ohne Verfassung(svertrag)?”, Juristenzeitung, 2007, p. 905; F.C. Mayer, “Wege aus der Verfassungskrise – Zur Zukunft des Vertrages über eine Verfassung für Europa”, Juristenzeitung 2007, p. 593; H.-J. Rabe, “Zur Metamorphose des Europäischen Verfassungsvertrages”, Neue Juristische Wocheschrift, 2007, p. 3153; T.S. Richter,“Die EU-Verfassung ist tot, es lebe der Reformvertrag!”, Europäische Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht, 2007, p. 631.
[4] D. Chalmers, C. Hadjiemmanuil, G. Monti, A. Tomkins, European Union Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 183.
[5] Decision of the European Court of Justice of February 5, 1963 in the case ofVan Gend en Loos, C-26/62.
[6] Decision of the European Court of Justice of July 15, 1964 in the case of Costa v. ENEL C-6/64.
[7] Decision of the European Court of Justice, C-26/62.
[8] D. Chalmers, C. Hadjiemmanuil, G. Monti, A. Tomkins, European Union Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 183.
[9] See G. de Búrca, “Sovereignty and the Supremacy Doctrine of the European Court of Justice”, in N. Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003, p. 449; A. Schmitt Glaeser, “Souveränität und Vorrang”, in A. von Bogdandy, Europäisches Verfassungsrecht, Heidelberg, Springer Verlag, 2003, p. 205.
[10] For an analysis of a parallel development in early US constitutionalism shortly before and after 1787 see J.-P. Jaqué, “Der Vertrag über eine Verfassung für Europa: Konstitutionalisierung oder Vertragsrevision?”, Europäische Grundrechte-Zeitschrift p. 551-553. See important references to A. Hamilton’s letters no.s 15 and 16 in C. Rossiter’s introduction to The Federalist Papers, New York, Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961.
[11] For an equally critical and innovative in-depth analysis, see U. Haltern, Was bedeutet Souveränität?, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck Verlag, 2007; from a different perspective, N. MacCormick, Questioning Sovereignty: Law, State, and Nation in the European Commonwealth, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 123.
[13] For the original text and its German translation see G. Franz (ed.), Staatsverfassungen, 2nd ed., Munich, Oldenbourg, 1964, p. 314; for a comparative approach, F. Chopin, La République “une et indivisible”, les fondements de la fédération américaine, Paris, Pion, 2002.
[14] So, already Ulpian, Digests 1, 3, 31. Bodin (Six Livres de la République, 1st Book, chapter 8) says: “Maiestas est summa in cives ac subditos legibus soluta potestas”. For an analysis from the classical point of view, U. Scupin, “Der Begriff der Souveränität bei Johannes Althusius und Jean Bodin”, in Der Staat, 1965, p. 1; H. Quaritsch, Staat und Souveränität, vol. 1, Frankfurt am Main, Athenäum, 1970, p. 243; id., Souveränität. Entstehung und Entwicklung des Begriffs in Frankreich und Deutschland vom 13. Jh. bis 1806, Berlin, Dubcker & Humblot, 1986, p. 46; D. Engster, “Jean Bodin. Skepticism and Absolute Sovereignty”, History of Political Thought, 1996, p. 496.
[15] On the legitimacy question in the context of European Union law, see G. de Búrca, “The Quest for Legitimacy in the European Union”, Modern Law Review, 1996, p. 349.
[16] F. Hinsley, Sovereignty, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986; H. Steinberger, “Sovereignty”, Encyclopedia of Public International Law, 1987, p. 397; A. Verdross, B. Simma, Universelles Völkerrecht, 3rd ed. Berlin, Dubcker & Humblot, 1984, p. 25.
[17] See Governance Team, Report to the Commission: Consultations Conducted for the Preparation of the White Paper on Democratic European Governance, SG/8533/01-EN, July 2001; A. Arnull, “What is Governance”, European Law Review, 2001, p. 411; M. Ruffert, “Demokratie und Governance in Europa”, in H. Bauer, P.M. Huber, K.-P. Sommermann (eds), Demokratie in Europa, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2005, p. 319 (further references, p. 320-1, footnote 5).
[18] Seealso the analysis by M. Sellers, “Republican Principles in International Law”, Connecticut Journal of International Law, 1996, p. 403, and p. 412: “Vattel’s argument for strict national sovereignty and the rigorous independence of states rested on this analogy between personal and national freedom. When Vattel was writing in the mid-eighteenth century, personal freedom hardly existed outside Switzerland and the Netherlands. At that time, it made sense for enlightened and well-meaning authors to establish an absolute principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states. The most likely interventions of Vattel’s era would have curbed emerging popular sovereignty. Similarly, even after the French and American revolutions, preponderant power remained in the hands of European despots. Relatively progressive states, such as Britain, promoted non-intervention in defense of nascent continental liberty, as in Naples and Spain, against reactionary European monarchs. The United States also embraced non-intervention to protect itself and other recently liberated American republics against the reimposition of European autocracy in the New World. But the emergence of the United States as a world power altered this equation, and many republics now have the strength to protect foreign liberty, without endangering their own democratic institutions or national independence.”
[19] The problemi is dealt with by A. Bleckmann, B. Fassbender, “Art. 2(I)”, in B. Simma (ed.), The Charter of the United Nations. A Commentary, vol. I, Oxford, Oxford University press, 2002; S.D. Krasner, Sovereignty. Organized Hypocrisy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1999.
[20]R. Lhotta, “Sovereignty and Symbolization”, Rechtstheorie, 1997,p. 347: Sovereignty as a “historical category”.
[21] E. Renan, “What is a Nation? (Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?)”, Lecture at the Sorbonne, 11 March 1882, in G. Eley, R. Grigor Suny (eds), Becoming National: A Reader, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 41-55: “A nation’s existence is, if you will pardon the metaphor, a daily plebiscite, just as an individual’s existence is a perpetual affirmation of life”. P. Häberle, Verfassung als öffentlicher Prozess, 3rd ed., Berlin, Dubcker & Humblot, 1998.
[22] In general, L. Kühnhardt, European Integration: Challenge and Response, ZEI Discussion papers C. 157, 2006; U. Schliesky, Souveränität und Legitimität von Herrschaftsgewalt. Die Weiterentwicklung von Begriffen der Staatslehre und des Staatsrechts im europäischen Mehrebenensystem, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2004.
[23] I. Pernice, “Multilevel Constitutionalism and the Treaty of Amsterdam: European Constitution-Making Revisited?”, Common Market Law Review, 1999, p. 703.
[24] N. Walker, “The Idea of Constitutional Pluralism”, Modern Law Review, 2002, p. 317.
[26] From a global perspective, C.W. Jenks, The Common Law of Mankind, New York, Frederick A. Praeger, 1958, p. 17; E. Badie, Souveränität und Verantwortung. Politische Prinzipien zwischen Fiktion und Wirklichkeit, Hamburg, Hamburger Edition, 2002.
[27] H. Grotius, “De Jure Belli ac Pacis”, in Classics of International Law 102 (James Scott Brown ed., Francis W. Kelsey trans., 1925), Oxford, Clarendon Press, p. 123-4; see also J. Ngugi, “Making New Wine for Old Wineskins: Can the Reform of International Law Emancipate the Third World in the Age of Globalization?”, U.C. Davis Journal of International Law and Policy, 2002, p. 73-83; see quotations in footnote 36.
[28] H. Grotius, “De Jure Belli ac Pacis”, in Classics of International Law 102 (James Scott Brown ed., Francis W. Kelsey trans., 1925), Oxford, Clarendon Press, p. 123-4.
[29] H. Grotius, “De Jure Belli ac Pacis”, in Classics of International Law 102 (James Scott Brown ed., Francis W. Kelsey trans., 1925), Oxford, Clarendon Press, p. 123-4.
[30] M.W. Hebeisen, Souveränität in Frage gestellt, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 1995; C. Hillgruber, “Souveränität — Verteidigung eines Rechtsbegriffs”, Juristenzeitung, 2002, p. 1072; S. Oeter, “Souveränität — ein überholtes Konzept?”, in Festschrift für H. Steinberger, Berlin, Springer Verlag, 2002, p. 259; a classic is H. Kelsen, “Keyword Souveränität”, in: K. Strupp (ed), Wörterbuch des Völkerrechts, vol. II, Berlin, De Gruyter, 1925, p. 554; also H. Heller, “Die Souveränität”, in: id., Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 2, Leiden, Stijhoff, 1971, p. 31; C. Schmitt, Politische Theologie. Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souveränität, 5th ed. (reprint of the 2nd ed.), Berlin, Duncker and Humblot, 1990; E.A. von der Heydte, Die Geburtsstunde des souveränen Staates, Regensburg, Druck und Verlag Josef Habbel, 1952.
[31] H. Heller, “Die Souveränität”, in: id., Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 2, Leiden, Stijhoff, 1971, p. 31; p. 57 mentions the sociological problem of sovereignty; see also M. Baldus, “Zur Relevanz des Souveränitätsproblems”, Der Staat, 1997, p. 381.
[32] P.W. Kahn, “The Question of Sovereignty”, Stanford Journal of International Law, 2004, p. 259.
[33] J. Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 26 with reference to the “Reparations Case”, ICJ Reports, 1949, p. 174-180.
[34] For a more comprehensive picture, including the worldwide perspective, reference should be made to L. Kühnhardt, The Global Proliferation of Regional Integration, ZEI Discussion Paper C 136, 2004.
[35] The history of sovereignty is a story of change: J. Kokott, “Souveräne Gleichheit und Demokratie im Völkerrecht”, Zeitschrift für ausländisches Öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, 2004, p. 517; M. Kotzur, “Souveränitätsperspektiven — entwicklungsgeschichtlich, verfassungsstaatlich, staatenübergreifend”, Jahrbuch des Öffentlichen Rechts, 2004, p. 198, with further reference to the classics of sovereignty theory on p. 200, footnote 22; B. Fassbender, “Sovereignty and Constitutionalism in International Law”, in: N. Walker (ed), Sovereignty in Transition, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003, p. 115.
[36] U. Haltern, Was bedeutet Souveränität?, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2007, p. 3 with reference to A. Linklater, “Citizenship and Sovereignty in the Post-Westphalian State”, European Journal of International Relations, 1996, p. 77.
[37] One might also speak of the “sovereignty of the citizens” as representing the pluralistic diversity of a modern democracy, see P. Häberle, “Zur gegenwärtigen Diskussion um das Problem der Souveränität”, Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts, 1967, p. 259.
[38] Rt Hon. Chris Patten, The Chatham Lecture, Trinity College, Oxford, 26 October 2000.
[39] J.P.G. Bach, Between Sovereignty and Integration: German Foreign Policy and National Identity after 1989, New York, St Martin’s Press, 1999.
[40] A. Cobban, The Nation State and National Self-Determination, London, Collins, 1969; M. Pomerance, Self-Determination in Law and Practice, Den Haag, Martinus Nijhoff, 1982; M. Sellers (ed.), The New World Order, Sovereignty, Human Rights and Self-Determination of the Peoples, Oxford, Berg, 1996.
[41] A. von Bogdandy, “The European Union as Supranational Federation”, Columbia Journal of European Law, 2000, p. 27.
[42] See D. Chalmers, C. Hadjiemmanuil, G. Monti, A. Tomkins, European Union Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 183.
[43] G.F. Schuppert, “Überlegungen zur demokratischen Legitimation des europäischen Regierungssystems”, in Festschrift für D. Rauschning, Cologne, Carl Heymanns Verlag, 2001, p. 201; C. Calliess, “Optionen zur Demokratisierung der Europäischen Union”, in H. Bauer, P.M. Huber, K.-P. Sommermann (eds), Demokratie in Europa, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2005, p. 281; G. Lübbe-Wolff, “Europäisches und nationales Verfassungsrecht”, Veroffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer, 2001, p. 248; M. Zürn, “Über den Staat und die Demokratie im europäischen Mehrebenensystem”, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 1996, p. 27; P.M. Huber, “Die Rolle des Demokratieprinzips im europäischen Integrationsprozess”, Staatswissenschaften und Staatpraxis, 1992, p. 349.
[44] B. de Witte, “Direct Effect, Supremacy, and the Nature of the Legal Order”, in P. Craig, G. de Búrca (eds), The Evolution of EU Law, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 196.
[45] D. Halberstam, “The Political Morality of the Federal Systems”, Virginia Law Review, 2004, p. 101- 104.
[46] M. Waelbroeck, “The Emergent Doctrine of Community Pre-emption: Consent and Re-delegation”, in T. Sandalow, E. Stein (eds), Courts and Free Markets: Perspectives from the United States and Europe, Vol. II, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982.
[47] Very instructive, B. Fassbender, “Sovereignty and Constitutionalism in International Law”, in N. Walker (ed), Sovereignty in Transition, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003, p. 115.
[48] S.E. Merry, “Changing Rights, Changing Culture”, in: J.K. Cowan, M.-B. Dembour, R.A. Wilson (eds), Culture and Rights – Anthropological Perspectives, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 42.
[49] A. Bleckmann, Allgemeine Staats- und Völkerrechtslehre. Vom Kompetenz- zum Kooperationsvölkerrecht, Cologne, Carl Heymanns Verlag, 1995; M. Kotzur, Theorieelemente des internationalen Menschenrechtsschutzes, Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2001, p. 157.
[50] C.M. Vázquez, “Trade Sanctions and Human Rights – Past, Present, and Future”, Journal of International Economic Law, 2003, p. 797-838, which includes further references; also, R. Lapidoth, “Some Reflections on the Law of Sanctions and the Practice Concerning the Impositions of Sanctions by the Security Council”, Archiv des Völkerrechts, 1992, p. 114; D. Starck, Die Rechtmäßigkeit von UN-Wirtschaftssanktionen in Anbetracht ihrer Auswirkungen auf die Zivilbevölkerung, Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2000; G. Biehler, “Individuelle Sanktionen der Vereinten Nationen und Grundrechte”, Archiv des Völkerrechts, 2003, p. 169-170; O. Poeschke, Politische Steuerung durch Sanktionen?, Wiesbaden, Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag, 2003, p. 78.
[51] T. Schilling, “Der Schutz der Menschenrechte gegen Beschlüsse des Sicherheitsrates”, Zeitschrift für ausländisches Öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, 2004, p. 343; C. Walter, “Grundrechtsschutz gegen Hoheitsakte internationaler Organisationen”, Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts, 2004, p. 39; M. Kotzur, “Eine Bewährungsprobe für die Europäische Grundrechtsgemeinschaft – Zur Entscheidung des EuG in der Rs. Yusuf u.a. gegen Rat”, Europäische Grundrechte-Zeitschrift, 2006, p. 19; K. Schmalenbach, “Normtheorie vs. Terrorismus: Der Vorrang des UN-Rechts vor EU-Recht”, Juristenzeitung, 2006, p. 349; C. Tietje, S. Hamelmann, “Gezielte Finanzsanktionen der Vereinten Nationen im Spannun, 2006, p. 299; C. Möllers, “Bezwingendes Recht”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 15.02.2006, p. 39.
[52] R. Jennings, A. Watts, Oppenheim’s International Law, vol. I/1, 9th ed., London, Longman, 1996, p. 502; C. Stahn,, “Nicaragua is dead, long live Nicaragua – the Right to Self-defence under Art. 51 UN Charter and International Terrorism”, in C. Walter et al. (eds), Terrorism as a Challenge for National and International Law: Security versus Liberty?, Berlin, Springer, 2004, p. 823-864.
[53] S. von Schorlemer, “Menschenrechte und ‘humanitäre Intervention’”, in Internationale Politik, 2000; K. Schmalenbach, “Recht undGerechtigkeit im Völkerrecht”, Juristenzeitung, 2005, p. 637; P. Schaber, “Humanitäre Intervention als moralische Pflicht”, in Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, 2006, p. 295; N. Lange-Bertalot, Weltbürgerliches Völkerrecht: Kantianische Brücke zwischen konstitutioneller Souveränität und humanitärer Intervention, Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2007. See also M. Sellers, “Republican Principles in International Law”, Connecticut Journal of International Law, 1996, p. 403-411, who starts his line of argument with Grotius: “Grotius denied the republican doctrine of popular sovereignty, observing that no nation had ever allowed women, minors, or paupers to join in public debate. As husbands govern wives, and masters rule slaves, so kings may own nations, to avoid the turbulence of uncertain jurisdiction. These proto-Hobbesian arguments and assumptions would not be made openly today. But they survive in the modern doctrine of non-intervention in the domestic jurisdiction of sovereign governments, as interpreted by some contemporary commentators on international law. Yet even Bodin admitted the right of intervention in a state’s formerly internal affairs, when the state’s sovereign oppresses his subjects, and Grotius fully recognized the equivalence between slavery and regal sovereignty while nevertheless excusing both.”
[54] J.P. Müller, “Wandel des Souveränitätsbegriffs im Lichte der Grundrechte”, in Symposion für 60. Geburtstag von Luzius Wildhaber, Basel, Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1997, p. 45, p. 61; M. Kotzur, Theorieelemente des internationalen Menschenrechtsschutzes, Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2001, p. 322.
[55] HRLJ 16 (1995), p. 437-458 (no. 97); see also C. Kress, “Friedenssicherung und Konfliktvölkerrecht an der Schwelle zur Postmoderne”, in: Europäische Grundrechte-Zeitschrift, 1996, p. 638.
[56] V. Havel, “Die Herrschaft der Gesetze”, in: id., Sommermeditationen, 2nd ed. Hamburg, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1994, p. 14, p. 27; M. Kotzur, “Souveränitätsperspektiven – entwicklungsgeschichtlich, verfassungsstaatlich, staatenübergreifend”, Jahrbuch des öffentlichen Rechts, 2004, p. 198, p. 215. Rousseau would have spoken of popular sovereignty, which to some extent is implicit in the right to the “self-determination of peoples”, see M. Sellers, “Republican Principles in International Law”, Connecticut Journal of International Law, 1996, p. 403, especially footnote 24.
[57] D. Chalmers, C. Hadjiemmanuil, G. Monti, A. Tomkins, European Union Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 183.
[58] M. Sellers, “Republican Principles in International Law”, Connecticut Journal of International Law, 1996, p. 403, especially footnote 43.
[59] M. Sellers, “Republican Principles in International Law”, Connecticut Journal of International Law, 1996, p. 413.
[60] P. Häberle, “Die Verfassung im Kontext”, in D. Thürer, J.F. Aubert, J.P. Müller (eds), Verfassungsrecht in der Schweiz. Droit constitutionnel suisse, Zurich, Schultess, 2001, § 2, p. 17.
[61] A. Padgen (ed.), The Idea of Europe. From Antiquity to European Union, Cambridge-New York, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
[62] P.M. Stirk, A History of European Integration since 1914, London, Pinter, 2001; J.E. Stiglitz, The Process of European Integration and the Future of Europe, Gunnar Myrdal Lecture presented at the U.N. Palais des Nations in 2004.
[63] P. Häberle, Europäische Verfassungslehre, 5th ed., Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2008, p. 65, p. 102; also, R.H. Ginsberg, Demystifying the European Union. The Enduring Logic of European Integration, Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
[64] Also P. Dann (ed.), The Unity of the European Constitution, Berlin, Springer, 2006.
[65] See M. Kotzur, Grenznachbarschaftliche Zusammenarbeit in Europa, Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2004, p. 326; instructive, E. Schmidt-Aßmann, “Verwaltungskooperation und Verwaltungs-kooperationsrecht in der Europäischen Gemeinschaft”, Europarecht, 1996, p. 247; a very early analysis was, on the one hand, that of P. Häberle, “Der kooperative Verfassungsstaat”, in: id., Verfassung als öffentlicher Prozess, 3rd ed. Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1998, p. 407, and on the other hand that of E.-H. Ritter, “Der kooperative Staat”, Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts, 1979, p. 389; also, S.J. Nuttall, European Political Co-operation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992; for a specific source of reference,M.E. Smith, Europe’s Foreign and Security Policy: The Institutionalization of Cooperation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004.
[66] See M.R. Lucas, Nationalism, Sovereignty, and Supranational Organizations. Hamburg, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy, 1996.
[67] J. Golub, Sovereignty and Subsidiarity in EU Environmental Policy, EUI Working Papers, 2/1996.
[68] This is clearly illustrated in, for example, the decision of Germany´s Federal Constitutional Court in BVerfGE 89, 155 — Maastricht. Regarding human rights questions, see also BVerfGE 37, 271 — Solange I; BVerfGE 73, 339 — Solange II; BVerfGE 102, 147 — Bananenmarktordnung. See N. MacCormick, “The Maastricht-Urteil: Sovereignty Now”, European Law Journal, 1995, p. 259.
[69] D. Chalmers, C. Hadjiemmanuil, G. Monti, A. Tomkins, European Union Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 206.
[70] D. Chalmers, C. Hadjiemmanuil, G. Monti, A. Tomkins, European Union Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 187.
[71] M. Burgess, Federalism and European Union. The Building of Europe 1950-2000, New York, Routledge, 2000. On the subject of visions, L. Brittan, The Europe We Need, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1994.
[72] So, emphatically, P. Häberle, Europäische Verfassungslehre, 5th ed. Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2008, p. 424; also, H.-P. Schneider, “Föderative Gewaltenteilung in Europa. Zur Kompetenzabgrenzung zwischen Europäischer Union und den Mitgliedstaaten”, in Festschrift für H. Steinberger, Berlin, Springer, 2002, p. 1401.
[73]A. Hatje, Loyalität als Rechtsprinzip in der Europäischen Union, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2001.
[74]Y. Devuyst, The EU at the Crossroads, Brussels, P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2003.
[75] See also J.J. Weiler, “Federalism without Constitutionalism: Europe’s Sonderweg”, in K. Nicolaidis, R. Howse (eds), The Federal Vision: Legitimacy and Levels of Governance in the United States and the European Union, New York, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 37.
[76] Therefore, the term “post-national constellation”, as used by J. Habermas, might be misleading. See also M. Wind, Sovereignty and European Integration: Towards a Post-Hobbesian Order, New York, Palgrave, 2001.
[77] The literature addressing the subisdiarity principle is abundant. For all, see A. D’Atena, “Die Subsidiarität: Werte und Regeln”, in Liber Amicorum P. Häberle, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2004, p. 327, which contains many further references.
[78] A. Chayes, A. Handler Chayes, The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regular Agreements, Cambridge MA - London, Harvard University Press, 1995; G.P. Sampson, S. Woolock (eds), Regionalism, Multilateralism, and Economic Integration. The Recent Experience, New York, United Nations University Press, 2003.
[79] “In the future world, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way —everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings, which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbour — everywhere in the world.” For the citation see: L.Kühnhardt, Die Universalität der Menschenrechte, Munich, Olzog, 1987, p. 112; also, H. Lauterpacht, An International Bill of the Rights of Man, New York, Columbia University Press, 1945, p. 6 and p. 84.
[80] M. Kotzur, “Föderalisierung, Regionalisierung und Kommunalisierung als Strukturprinzipien des europäischen Verfassungsraums”, Jahrbuch des öffentlichen Rechts, 2002, p. 257.
[81] J.J. Weiler, “The European Union Belongs to its Citizens: Three Immodest Proposals”, European Law Review, 1997, p. 155.
[82] See T. Christiansen, European Integration between Political Science and International Relations Theory : the End of Sovereignty, Florence, EUI Working Paper Series, 1994.
