Abstract: The European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) is understood as an important new "instrument" in the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) "toolbox", designed to respond to the contemporary security environment as well as to overcome the inaction and hesitancy of the past....

Altneuland: The European Constitutional Terrain It is in many respects a New Land - for the first time the Union is openly, officially using the word Constitution in its formal self-understanding. But this, in turn, places it, at least lexically, in the age old terrain of constitutionalism which...

Abstract: On June 30, 2009, the German Constitutional Court declared the Lisbon Treaty to be compatible with the German constitution. The Lisbon decision marked the end of an intense constitutional battle. The following text illustrates how different views on and different understandings of...

Abstract: As the distinction between interpretation and politics diminishes, the need for pluralism in interpretation increases. The Article argues, first, that the rule of law requires that no one tribunal possess the power to subordinate a whole legal system to its politicized rule. The...

Abstract: The Lisbon Treaty marks the end, at least for the foreseeable future, of the project of a European Constitution. But does it also mean a rejection of the tradition of Western constitutionalism? The author addresses the question outlining, first, the main elements of the modern Western...

Abstract: Reawakened from its decades-long slumber during the Cold War, the UN Security Council has become more active than ever before.  Increased UN activity, however, has not always spelled increased accountability.  The problem is particularly acute with regard to the UN Security...

Abstract: The paper compares French and Dutch legal approaches in regulating the use of headscarves in public institutions as examples of divergent liberal legal cultures and national policies towards immigrant minorities. It shows that in France the principle of laïcité or state secularity...

Abstract: This paper, which is based on information provided by national reports submitted from 17 member states and one candidate state, reflects on the aftermath of the non-ratification of the Constitutional Treaty (TECE), and more specifically on the particular path chosen by EU political...