The Cosmopolitan Constitution

Download or read book The Cosmopolitan Constitution written by Alexander Somek and published by Oxford Constitutional Theory. This book was released on 2014 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The foundations of constitutional authority have changed since modern constitutions first emerged in the eighteenth century. Originally, the constitution is supposed to express and to channel popular sovereignty. It is a work of freedom. It springs from, and facilitates, collective self-determination. This perspective changes after the Second World War. From now on constitutional authority is supposed to commit itself credibly to human rights. The people recede into the background. Universal principles command respect. Moreover, the national constitution becomes embedded into one or the other system of peer review among nations. This marks the advent of the cosmopolitan constitution. But this new cosmopolitan paradise is ambivalent. Greater civility and mutual supervision in the relation among peoples exacts the price of their political disempowerment. The question is whether this new form of constitutional authority can be based on an alternative form of collective self-determination that is no longer political but cosmopolitan in kind. But would such a shift, even if possible, be also desirable?