Making a World of Difference? Habermas, Cosmopolitanism and the Constitutionalization of International Law

Neil Walker

No 17, EUI-LAW Working Papers from European University Institute (EUI), Department of Law

Abstract: This paper examines the explicit linkage in the recent work of Habermas betweencosmopolitanism and the constitutionalization of international law. Whereas previous thinking on the constitutionalization of international law has tended either towards the utopianism of world government or the modest ambition of attaching the constitutional label to certain material developments in transnational regulation – in particular the human rightsregimes and the institutional structure of the UN as developed through state agreement – Habermas looks for an intermediate solution. This would involve a modest range of institutions and functions at the global level, in particular around peace and human rights, but founded on a broader and more popular basis than state agreement. The potential and urgency of the Habermas proposal lies in its opposition less to the other constitutional visions and more to the alternative and increasingly tangible prospect of a lop-sided international regime dominated by American perspectives.

Keywords: constitution building; legitimacy; international agreements; multilevel governance; law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-12-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-reg
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.eui.eu/ERPA/LAW/../../PUB/LawWPs/law2005-17.pdf Full text (text/html)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.eui.eu/ERPA/LAW/../../PUB/LawWPs/law2005-17.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.eui.eu/ERPA/LAW/../../PUB/LawWPs/law2005-17.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:erp:euilaw:p0033

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in EUI-LAW Working Papers from European University Institute (EUI), Department of Law
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Machteld Nijsten ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).