de la Rasilla del Moral: Constitutional Tempo in the Law that Dares Not Speak Its Name

Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral (European Univ. Institute - Law) has posted Constitutional Tempo in the Law that Dares Not Speak Its Name (Southwestern Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

In this work, which is part of an-going series on the building blocks of global constitutionalism, I elaborate upon the notion of constitutional tempo in international law, which I distinguish from other constitutional related figures like “constitutional moments”. I do so before introducing the on-going legislative reforms that are banning the judicial use of foreign and international law in a growing number of U.S. States and the contemporary debate on the use of foreign legal sources by the U.S. Supreme Court. I examine an array of factors behind today’s especially intense contemporary constitutional tempo in international law. I explain that they are related to a narrative of continuation with the past in international law, to the proliferation of international institutions and the fragmentation of the international legal order, to the rise of world constitutionalism, to the emergence of new transnational and non-state actors, to the horizontal pull of regional processes of integration (that include, but are not limited to the EU level, especially in a post-Lisbon Treaty scenario), to the on-going individualization of international law, to the pressing need to meet increasingly interdependent challenges in the age of globalization, to the legitimacy/democratic deficit of global governance and last, but not least, to the on-going paradigm shift in the study of law brought about by the contemporary challenge to the nation-state as the natural carrier of history.