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Abstract

Global Constitutionalism: Crisis or Consolidations? Constitutionalism, which is prohibited as a subject of education in China, is both an analytic tool and a normative programme. Global constitutionalism refers both to international law and to the various constitutional orders of nation states which are partially converging. Globalisation compels national and international institutions to take political and legal measures which often deploy effects for third parties without democratic foundations nor access to justice. This leads to a partial undermining of national constitutions. On the premiss that we wish to safeguard the functionality of constitutional principles (rule of law, human rights, democracy, and social security), this deconstitutionalisation should be compensated within international institutions and across states (compensatory constitutionalism). But this idea is challenged by anti-constitutional practices spreading on the national and international level and by epistemological and normative criticism. Facing these manifestations of crisis, the article maintains that an attractive ideology which could be an alternative to constitutionalism is lacking. This is evident when you consider the alternate waves of revendication and contestation typical of the legal political discourse in modernity and post-modernity. The article concludes that the evolution toward a pluralist and culturally sensitive constitutionalism can be spread worldwide but – if that does not happen – global constitutionalism is valuable as a critical language.