Source: http://on-federalism.eu/index.php/essays
Timestamp: 2018-08-16 11:39:22
Document Index: 92077907

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art. 2', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'art 2', 'art. 119']

articles essays federalism original perspectives published recently research
These are the Essays or original research articles recently published on Perspectives on Federalism.
Attempts to change the British House of Lords into a second chamber of the nations and regions: explaining a history of failed reforms
The House of Lords is the world’s longest-established and probably best-known second chamber. Wholly unelected, with most members appointed for life, it appears a vestige of the ‘elite’ form of bicamerali...
The Spanish Constitution defines the Senate as 'Chamber of territorial representation'. But in the Senate the provinces are represented, not the Autonomous Communities. The Senate is a Chamber of ‘sober secon...
Belgium was established in 1830 as a unitary state with a bicameral parliament, with symmetrical powers for the upper and the lower house. While federalism and bicameralism are often considered a pair, the Belg...
The German Basic Law constitutes federalism as a unique political system which is characterised by intertwined decision-making of the Federation (Bund) and the component units (Länder). The executives of the t...
According to many legal and political scientists the Austrian Bundesrat is generally considered to be a paradigmatic example of a politically and legally weak second chamber embedded in a strongly centralised f...
This paper presents the Swiss Ständerat as a model of perfect bicameralism. It looks at the constitutional design of the second Chamber, examines the evolution of the Ständerat and critically assesses its cur...
Discussions regarding the functional design of second chambers in federal or quasi-federal systems seem to focus mainly on legislative functions. Thus, extra- or non-legislative functions related to the executi...
Contemporary U.S. federalism particularly since the late1960s has evolved over the course of pluralism alternating exercisable governmental powers between the federal and state governments. The complexity of th...
Legislative functions of federal second chambers are not a homogeneous set of powers, but require comparison and classification. First, the paper will examine the legislative functions of the second chambers of...
This article briefly explores the reasons why the Committee of the Regions (CoR) has only partially accomplished its representative function. It is divided into three parts. In the first part I argue that the a...
The paper contends that bicameral systems, irrespective of their differences in composition and powers, are unfit to represent territorial interests in the national decision-making process, except in some resid...
Shared Rule vs Self-Rule? Bicameralism, Power-Sharing and the 'Joint Decision Trap'
In federal and regionalised states, bicameralism constitutes shared rule between levels of governments. At the same time, second chambers serve as a safeguard protecting self-rule of decentralised governments a...
The aim of this contribution is to make some points on the distinction between ‘perfect’ (or equal) and ‘imperfect’ (or unequal) bicameralism and its relevance to contemporary discussions about second c...
In a global context where popular referenda are increasingly used to decide contested issues, this paper aims at exploring the framework in which, in October 2017, two referenda took place in the Italian northe...
This paper evaluates the second-generation theory (SGT) of fiscal federalism. It spells out the main arguments of the theory and discusses the fiscal architecture of Nigerian federalism with a view to using the...
The Council is a crucial intergovernmental institution of the European Union. However, the complex, opaque and consensual character of the decision-making process in the Council puts its legitimacy into questio...
The Treaty of Lisbon introduced a new system of weighted votes in the Council, which radically departs from the principles on which the distribution of votes between the Member States of the EU was based for mo...
The European Social Dialogue, and its output, the European collective agreements, are intended to implement minimum standards of working conditions that bind all Member-States, in a logic of legal harmonisation...
For the last forty years, the European Union has been pursuing the goal of a unified system of patent law, which would make it possible for an invention to be protected, by EU law, throughout the territory of t...
A Federal Turn? The European Union's Response to Constitutional Crises in the Member States
The EU has not yet found effective answers to constitutional crises in its Member States, in particular Hungary and Poland. Due to systemic problems of compliance with the common values of Art. 2, the legitimac...
In recent political debate, the association between national souverainisme and Euroscepticism is considered a natural one. From Marine Le Pen to Matteo Salvini, there is a unanimous affirmation of the necessity...
This article is inspired by the 2017 discussions on the future of Europe (in particular some of the ideas debated in the White Paper on the Future of Europe, published by the European Commission) and the events...
After a discussion of the impact of the principle of equality, entrenched in the Charters approved in Canada since the 1867 British North American Act, this essay then focuses on the related Supreme Court’s a...
The Canadian constitution is to some extent characterised by its focus on equality, and in particular gender equality. This development of women’s rights in Canada and the greater engagement of women as polit...
Since it was passed, the Clarity Act has been at the core of any secessionist debate in Canada and abroad. Although contested at home, the Clarity Act has earned worldwide prestige as the democratic standard th...
In constitutional theory, the referendum is an instrument that allows for the expression of the popular will in government decisions and through which people are asked to vote directly on an issue or policy. Ov...
This paper starts with a general contextualisation of how Canadian constitutional law acquired an important role in global constitutional conversations in recent decades. It then considers, in particular, the w...
The paper focuses on Canadian Provinces’ role in migrant selection. After an asymmetric approach, that benefited only Quebec, the federal government granted devolutionary powers in migrant selection to the ot...
Constitutional scholarship in Canada since Confederation has been characterized by two primary narratives. The dualist narrative, which characterized constitutional scholarship between the late-nineteenth and m...
This paper examines the interaction between constitutional design and practice through a case study of Canadian federalism. Focusing on the federal architecture of the Canadian Constitution, the paper examines ...
This article explores the particular tensions surrounding judicial review in EU external relations. The tensions are classified using a two-dimensional framework. Firstly, a distinction based on policy domains ...
In this article, I compare constitutional and administrative models in terms of their implications for the EU legal order’s interaction with other legal regimes. I aim to make a twofold argument on the implic...
This paper analyses the ways in which the Unfair Contract Terms and Unfair Commercial Practices Directives try to steer a path between imposing a common European standard and allowing national variation. The op...
The EBU represents a clear investment in administrative integration with clear implications for the constitutional features of the EU. This paper aims to give an analysis of the administrative arrangements, thr...
The paper deals with the validity of constitutional pluralism as a constitutional theory for the European Union and a paradigm for the understanding of EU law in the current times of crisis. It reconstructs the...
This article provides an analysis of the functions performed by constitutional identity in constitutional discourses of both the EU and its Member States, in the context of emerging post-Westphalian and suprana...
This article questions the idea that the EU is a pure regulatory power based on supranational delegation of competence from the Member States. It claims the insufficiency of this single paradigm to explain the ...
Public power has been justified by resorting to two different kinds of legitimation: one coming from above, the other emerging from the governed. While legitimation “from above” implies that those who are v...
As is broadly recognized, the realm of administrative power greatly expanded over the course the twentieth century (particularly after 1945). This essay argues that this expansion, along with differential conce...
Canada and the United States of America are examples of how two constitutional systems in the same region may adopt substantially different solutions in respect of the powers of the head of state. While the Uni...
In this essay the question of what kind of conflicts are at stake in the context of European pluralism will be considered, with special focus on the shift from “conflicts by divergence” to “conflicts by c...
International and constitutional law, originally distinct realms with limited areas of intersection, are getting closer and closer, particularly in the European landscape within the human rights protection fiel...
Party capability theory assumes that governments, due to their immense resources and status as repeat players, hold a great advantage over individuals and organizations pursuing litigation in courts. Less known...
The difference between ASEAN and EU in the political and economic realm has an interesting parallel in the system of values and “rights” that are sustained by the two organisations. In effect if we look to ...
The international bailout granted to Portugal between 2011 and 2014 was conditional on the adoption by the Portuguese State of austerity measures included in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the ...
Progressive ideology has slowly eroded American principles for over a century, declaring social control its ultimate goal. Social control is not possible while American principles, such as individual freedoms a...
Constitutional politics seemingly corroborate the assumption that Germany is a Grand Coalition state. In this perspective German cooperative federalism and the supermajority required for any amendment to the co...
This paper aims to provide a brief assessment of the legal framework of the newly established metropolitan cities in the Italian domestic legal order. After an historical overview of previous attempts to set up...
The European integration process has long been characterised by the predominance of national executive powers. National parliaments were recognised as European actors after several decades only, in the Maastric...
This paper provides a general overview of the EU’s own resources system, and of the debate on its possible reform within the current legal framework. Two alternative reforms are discussed, along with their...
Eight years after the outbreak of the crisis, the Eurozone (EZ) fiscal policy remains fragmented at the national level. This paper fills the structural gap between the monetary and fiscal dimensions of EZ econo...
EU Governance in the 2025 Run-up: A Joint Budgetary Procedure
The Euro Area (Eurozone, or EZ) is navigating uncharted waters; it has started, in slow motion, to slide towards a fiscal federation, while still lacking both the fiscal capacity and the democratic qualificatio...
The Revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020. A Round-up of Key Issues at Stake
By the end of 2016 the European Commission is expected to present its mid-term review of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2014-2020. The results of the review may open the way for a revision of the MFF...
The Sustainable European Union Own Resources System
From 1992, after the UN “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro, sustainable development has become a priority of many countries and international organizations, including the European Union. After the crisis of 2...
Monetary and Fiscal Arrangements for the Eurozone. Some Unconventional Proposals
Contributions in this special issue argue make a number of points with regard to the urgent need to change the economic governance of the Eurozone, pointing at some tools to increase its spending capacity. Th...
The article looks at fiscal constraints adopted by the U.S. States. It questions the ability of those rules to determine sound budgetary policies. To assess this point it analyses, in the general part, the majo...
The processes of deepening economic integration and regional development contribute to the intensification of inter-regional disparities. The EU’s efforts to achieve cohesion are intended to contribute to lif...
In contrast to U.S. Federal Indian law, which has classified indigenous tribes as “domestic dependent nations” since the early 19th century, Mexican law has only recently begun to define the political and t...
EU and EMU are facing a hastened phase of structural rather than episodic crisis, following the progressive shift of the world order from a bipolar toward a multi-polar system. From the sovereign debt trap to m...
European Union, and criminal, laws had been interacting in many ways even before explicit competence in criminal matters was acquired by the Union in the Treaty of Maastricht. Such intersections between suprana...
The current financial problems of some Euro-area Member States have been tackled by ad hoc financial institutions, formed outside of the EU as international institutions and aimed at granting financial assistan...
This note analyses a peculiar feature of the ESM, namely the lack of an acceptable set of standards for the fundamental democratic principle of transparency. Moving from the particular nature of this mechanism,...
This paper evaluates the impact of austerity measures on national social protection mechanisms and on the European Social Model. The study is based on an in-depth analysis of austerity measures adopted in Italy...
In this article I argue that the EU budget is (slowly) moving from a budget based on the rationale that richer EU countries help poorer EU countries in exchange for their engagement to the process of economic i...
This article examines the evolution of the EU ‘redistributive’ policies in the (post-) crisis EU era. By reviewing the EU cohesion policy, the financial assistance mechanisms, the new economic governance me...
Criticism of European solidarity relies on three cornerstone arguments with mythological features. First is the “Myth of the Beggar”: it is believed that supranational solidarity is self-defeating, as it pr...
This paper analyses the case-law of the European Court of Justice on the scope and limits of cross-border access of economically inactive Union citizens to national systems of social assistance. The author de-c...
European Movement International (EM) was founded in October 1948 after the Hague Congress held in May to coordinate the initiatives of the major European movements and political forces in favour of the unificat...
The question at hand is located at the intersection of EU law and national constitutional law, and aims to answer the following problem: namely, how to mitigate federal concerns in the context of infringement p...
In the series Neither Victims Nor Executioners (1946) the Franco-Algerian writer Albert Camus argued for the need of a relative utopia that would allow man, who refused the logic of murder and violence, to revo...
This paper analyses the case-law of the European Court of Justice on the substantive scope of ne bis in idem in transnational cases and evaluates the findings in light of the different concepts of legal interes...
This article analyzes the degree of convergence between the United States and the European Union regarding the structural role of administrative agencies. As will be argued, the United States and European Union...
This paper highlights the most important institutional evolutions of Belgian federalism stemming from the implementation of the sixth state reform (2012-2014). This reform inter alia included a transfer of powe...
This paper will deal with EU competence over patent law, especially in the context of the TRIPS Agreement with reference to the ruling of CJEU in the Daiichi Sankyo case (CJEU case C-414/11 Daiichi Sankyo v DEM...
Kriszta Kovács, Zsolt Körtvélyesi, and Alíz Nagy
People are usually born into their political communities, and only a minority of them become member of the given community by naturalisation. Sovereign states enjoy a great margin of appreciation in defining th...
This paper presents the case of Pakistan, which is also broadly illustrative of the issues concerning federalism and subnational empowerment in developing countries characterized by unconsolidated political sys...
Paulus Blokker and Werner Reutter
This special issue of Perspectives on Federalism collects papers mostly presented at the General Conference of the European Consortium of ...
The article analyses constitutional politics in the German Länder in the field of minors’ rights. Since this issue seems a purely legal matter dealt with at the federal, European and international level, we ...
Austria’s federalism is determined by an apparent contrast between formal and real constitution having its roots in foundational defects shaping the system to the present day. As for the formal dimension, Aus...
The Scottish Constitutional Tradition. A Very British Radicalism?
This paper discusses recent developments in Scottish nationalist constitutional thought during the period of 2002 to 2014, showing how the Scottish constitutional conversation has diverged from, but continues t...
Reform options for the EU budget – First reflections on the new departure for a new EU budget
There is a long standing debate on the reform of the EU budget. According to the final agreement on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2014-2020 signed in December 2013, the Commission will present, by t...
The ECB: towards a monetary authority of a federal Europe
The article explores the present role of the ECB in European economic governance and point at the required steps to make such governance effective in tackling the challenges of the Eurozone and of the European ...
The Never-Ending Reform of the EU: Another Link in the Chain of the Semi-Permanent Treaty Revision Process?
Roberto Castaldi and Giuseppe Martinico
This special issue is the result of a long project started within the activity of one of the working groups created at the Centre for St...
Political Parties at the European level (Europarties) have traditionally been regarded as weak actors in the EU political system. Yet, this assessment fails to correctly describe the role that the Europarties p...
Eurocrisis and Regional States: New trends in the European Regional Policy and the Regions’ future
This article focuses on the impact of the Eurocrisis on Regions and the role played by the European Regional Policy. Budget constraints and austerity measures determine to a large extent social policies, which ...
National parliaments and governmental accountability in the crisis: theory and practice
This contribution studies the question of governmental accountability in the crisis. It looks at how three Member State’s parliaments – French, German and Spanish– have exchanged on European Council meeti...
The European Council after Lisbon: A review article
This contribution deals with the role of the European Council in the institutional framework of the European Union, as it has been laid down by the Lisbon Treaty. It focuses on its rising influence, even beyond...
A new Commission for a new era. Is the parliamentarization of the European Commission the way forward?
This contribution focuses on the need of fostering a European political space and more in particular on the role and the design of the Commission needed to attain that aim. It is submitted that to increase true...
Four Points on the Court of Justice of the EU
This article addresses the role of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in possible scenarios of EU reforms. Despite its crucial role in the EU integration process the CJEU has been neglected in many of the pr...
Eurozone, non-Eurozone and “troubled asymmetries” among national parliaments in the EU. Why and to what extent this is of concern
The reform of the economic governance in the EU, as a reaction to the Eurozone crisis, has increased the asymmetries in the Union. Although formally respected, the principle of equality of the Member States bef...
The aim of this article is to review the European partnership with Egypt under the European Neighbourhood Policy, in order to assess the effectiveness of the EU policy in the promotion of democratization and hu...
Re-exploring subnational constitutionalism
G. Delledonne - G. Martinico - P. Popelier
This special issue of the journal, which collects some of the papers presented at the latest World Congress of the International Association of Constitutional Law in Oslo, is entirely devoted to subnational con...
Intergovernmental relations in Spain and the United Kingdom: the institutionalization of multilateral cooperation in asymmetric polities
Considering their dynamic and asymmetric character, the Spanish and British territorial constitutions seem particularly suitable for a comparative analysis. As regards the framework for intergovernmental relati...
The Evolutionary Economic Implications of Constitutional Designs: Lessons from the Constitutional Morphogenesis of New England and New Zealand
Subnational Constitutions; The Belgian Case in the Light of the Swiss Experience
Although Belgian federated entities do not have constituent power, Flanders has recently envisaged the adoption of a “proto-subnational Bill of Rights”, called the Charter for Flanders. This study briefly r...
The Role of Subnational Constitutions in Accommodating Centrifugal Tendencies within European States: Flanders, Catalonia and Scotland Compared
Looking at federalism (Belgium), quasi-federalism (Spain) and devolution (United Kingdom), this paper shows that regional autonomy of Flanders, Catalonia and Scotland may be strengthened through a strong empowe...
Multilevel Systems and Sub-National Constitutional Politics in Germany: a Qualitative Comparative Analysis
Are sub-national constitutional politics shaped by multilevel structures or by sub-national factors? That is the question I am tackling with in this paper. In order to answer this question I will examine 23 dec...
Answers to Spanish centrifugal federalism: Asymmetrical federalism versus coercive federalism
The developing debate in Spain about its conversion into a federal State has now acquired an even greater relevance. Federalism, as a process of federalization, is subject to several descriptions with different...
Movement towards a Flemish Constitution: the Charter for Flanders, another failed attempt?
A Constitution for Flanders has been preoccupying Flemish politicians and scholars for over twenty years. On 23 May 2012, the majority parties presented in the Flemish Parliament the Charter for Flanders. Si...
Constitutional bases in the federal conflict over access to health care of undocumented immigrants in Spain
In Spain, over the last thirty years, the powers of “Autonomous Communities” to guarantee welfare and social rights have witnessed exponential proliferation. Such expansion has occurred within the wider pro...
Giuseppe Martinico - Leonardo Pierdominici
The aim of this article is to offer an account of the centralization and compression of subnational spaces of autonomy triggered by the economic crisis. Scholars have already produced sound and detailed researc...
Zemelak Ayitenew Ayele
The federal Constitution of Ethiopia provides the regional states - the constituent unit of the federation –with the power to draft, adopt and amend their own constitutions, thereby allowing each of the re...
Strengthening state constitutionalism from the federal Constitution: the case of Mexico
In this essay, the author explores the way in which courts have played an important role in defining the shape of Mexico’s federal system and state constitutionalism in that country’s emerging multi-party d...
What Scope for Subnational Autonomy: the Issue of the Legal Enforcement of the Principle of Subsidiarity
The transformation of a patchwork of Westphalian nation-states into a multi-level legal order where competences and responsibilities interlock, brings about the fundamental question as to who should do what?...
Subnational multilevel constitutionalism
The embedment of states in a multilevel government environment created by rule-based international organizations, also impacts upon the position of subnational entities in federal and quasi-federal states. I...
Constitutional Courts, Constitutional Interpretation, and Subnational Constitutionalism
This paper analyzes the impact of courts and different systems of judicial review on subnational constitutional autonomy. Focus is put on the question on which interpretive guidelines courts may draw when they ...
On the Brink of a Federal State? The Decentralisation Model of the Peruvian Constitution
In 2001, constitutional amendments significantly changed the Peruvian Constitution’s chapter on decentralisation. A distribution of competencies was introduced and various organic laws were enacted in this...
Macroeconomic Imbalances in the Euro Area and Policy Intervention: the Role of Trade with Emerging Economies
The aim of this paper is to evidence the benefits of a coordinated and symmetrical policy approach in the reduction of macroeconomic imbalances among Eurozone countries by analysing the exploitation of the t...
National Supreme Courts and the EU Legal Order: Building a European Judicial Community through Networking
This article discusses the role of national supreme courts in the development of the European legal order, moving from a hierarchical to an interaction account of the relationship between legal systems. It firs...
Riddle Me This, Riddle Me That: Anti-social Behaviour, Vagueness and Judicial Discretion in the United Kingdom
Earlier this year, the UK Parliament passed an Act aimed at redesigning the legislative landscape in the field of anti-social behaviour. It is no secret that, when anti-social behaviour legislation first came ...
While the study of federalism has in many respects reached an advanced stage today, there nevertheless remains a troubling absence of agreement as to the precise meaning of the concept. It is subject to multipl...
Since 1957, the European Economic Community (EEC) has undergone profound constitutional changes, dictated by the geographic and functional expansion of the EU, but also by the need to heal its original sin: the...
The need to reduce the vulnerability of society against disasters has fostered the introduction of regulatory instruments which can anticipate protection before a danger is imminent and an emergency phase start...
This article examines the nature, purpose and effect of constitutional dialogues between the Court of Justice of the European Union and constitutional courts taking as example the difficulty encountered in t...
State accountability for violations of EU law by Regions: infringement proceedings and the right of recourse
The 2001 constitutional reform in Italy has promoted a more active participation of the Italian Regions in the law-making process and, even more significantly, also in the implementation of EU law. However, the...
The early warning mechanism represents an opportunity for building new and direct relationships between regional councils and the national parliament, which to date have been substantially lacking in Italy. Rel...
The evolving role of the Italian Conference system in representing regional interests in EU decision-making
This contribution focuses on the Italian experience of the ‘collective representation of regional interests through the State-Regions Conference and the other ‘horizontal’, interregional Conferences re...
The balance sheet of having had the early warning procedure for two years shows that the active role developed by some regional parliaments, like the Basque Parliament, has reached a point of lack of efficac...
The scrutiny of the principle of subsidiarity by autonomous regional parliaments with particular reference to the participation of the Parliament of Catalonia in the early warning system
The purpose of this article is to offer a practical approach to the new European dimension for regional parliaments signified by the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. The parliamentary scrutiny of su...
Spanish Autonomous Communities and EU policies
The European Union affects not only the competences of the Governments and Parliaments, but also of all public authorities, in particular the powers of sub-state entities of compound states, who saw how deci...
National and Regional Parliaments in the EU decision-making process, after the Treaty of Lisbon and the Euro-crisis
The Treaty of Lisbon increased the role of National and Regional Parliaments in the EU decision-making process, in order to compensate for some of the weaknesses of the European institutional architecture. N...
Sean Mueller - Soeren Keil
This article theorises the territorial solidarity and fiscal federalism and compares Switzerland with the European Union. While inter-territorial solidarity is a prerequisite for legitimate fiscal equalisati...
The international role of the European Parliament: The SWIFT Affair and the ‘re-assessed’ European institutional balance of power
Dominated since its early beginning by the Member States, the Common Foreign and Security policy (CFSP) has long been criticized for its lack of democratic legitimacy. The entering into force of the Lisbon Trea...
The Introduction of the "Balanced Budget" Principle into the Italian Constitution: What Perspectives for the Financial Autonomy of Regional and Local Governments?
This paper analyses the impact on regional and local authorities of Articles 117 and 119 of the Italian Constitution (hereafter referred to as “IC”) as amended by Constitutional Law no. 1/2012. In particula...
New Evidence of Asian Economic Integration: Prospects and Challenges of a Trilateral FTA between China, Japan and South Korea
Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) as a powerful trade policy instrument increasingly play an important role in Asian economic growth. Asian countries have sought to deepen their economic integration to achieve su...
Indirect Taxation and the role of the European Court of Justice within the preliminary reference procedure
This article examines the interpretation of indirect taxes by the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter, “CJEU” or “the Court”) by means of the preliminary reference procedure. It is ar...
EU Citizenship before the CJEU: On the importance of the application of the proportionality principle
Carmen Román Vaca
Courts use the proportionality principle to ensure the legitimacy of their decisions. According to Harbo (2010), the CJEU is interpreting the principle in different ways, determined by the different areas of...
Security Council Resolutions before European Courts: The Elusive Virtue of Non Direct Effect
UN Security Council resolutions lack direct effect, as they are not intended to oblige States in terms of means but just of results. This statement by the ECJ in the Kadi judgment has recently been used by t...
Implementing fiscal decentralization in Italy between crisis and austerity: Challenges ahead
Since 2010 the Italian central government has embarked on a challenging program of fiscal consolidation, which is hugely affecting sub-central government finances. Sub-national governments are involved in reach...
Overcoming the Legal Iron Curtain: Similarities and differences in the use of preliminary references between new and old Member States
On 30 March 2007, Italy signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and ratified it by Law 18/2009. Through this, Italy has committed itself to reforming the structure of its...
The eurozone crisis has made budgetary issues the focal point of political and public debates about the European Union. Besides the pessimistic context and conflictive nature of the ongoing negotiation of th...
Globalization and Cross-Border Cooperation in EU Law: A Transnational Research Agenda
This paper aims to analyse a specific dimension of the progressive transformation of the territorial/nation-state law by using the particular lens of cross-border cooperation as regulated under EU law.
The Importance of Consistent Interpretation in Subnational Constitutional Contexts: Old Wine in New Bottles?
In this paper I will focus on the role of national common judges (“giudici comuni”) in systems that are not characterized by a dual court system (one of the elements indentified by Gardner as peculiar to fu...
Foreign affairs have been traditionally seen as an exclusive competence of central governments. However, over the last 30 years, European paradiplomacy has been progressively developing not least because of the...
Subconstitutionalism in a Multilayered System. A Comparative Analysis of Constitutional Politics in the German Länder
Astrid Lorenz - Werner Reutter
Even though there have been some revaluations of the Länder in the last two decades German debates on federalism hardly take subnational constitutional politics into account. For example, textbooks on federali...
Federalism, the subnational constitutional framework and local government: Accommodating minorities within minorities
Not a single federation has been successful in demarcating the territorial matrix of the federation into ethnically pure subnational units. This includes federations that are primarily designed to accommodate e...
What Role for Regional Assemblies in Regional States? Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom in Comparative Perspective
The article aims to underline firstly the trend towards the homogenization of the subnational forms of governments, at regional level, across regional States, focusing on Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom (UK...
Building Subnational Constitutionalism Through Identity Narratives. The Case of Spain
This paper analyses the process of reform of the Statutes in Spanish Comunidades Autonomas, which began in 2006, in order to stress the role that an identity narrative takes in it. Almost every Statute inserts ...
The legislative power of infra-national entities in The European States
Regional legislative power carries the same title as national legislative power. However, it is obviously different in nature. If Acts are general and impersonal – characteristics that distinguish them from r...
Paulo Cardinal - Yihe Zhang
Macau and Hong Kong Special Administrative Regions of the People’s Republic of China enjoy, via a complex web of constituent legal instruments (international treaties, norms of the PRC Constitution and, last ...
Argentine federalism and sub-national constitutionalism is a very interesting case study for anybody trying to establish a federal system in any country around the world. Not because of its success, but precise...
Subnational Constitutionalism: A Matter of Review
Which is the meaning of constitutional review for a proper assessment of subnational constitutionalism? The essay tries to answer this question by means of comparative analysis. To do so, it considers both fede...
The need for sub-national constitutions in federal theory and practice. The Belgian case
Comparative constitutional scholarship identifies sub-national constituent power as one of the defining features of federal systems. Moreover, according to public choice theory, devolutionary federal systems ar...
Giacomo Delledonne-Giuseppe Martinico
This special issue of the journal is entirely devoted to subnational constitutionalism. To do so, it tries to adopt a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective and to identify constitutional patterns in tho...
Empowering Local Democracy In Catalonia: Tools And Policy Domains To Implement a Top-Down Solution
This article is the result of an ongoing research into a variety of features of Spanish local government . It aims, in particular, at providing a profile of the tools implemented by local authorities to improve...
Regulatory Framework of Local Citizen Participation: Instruments of Direct and Participative Democracy in the Municipal Field
This article focuses on the analysis of the regulatory framework of citizen participation in the local government, which organises direct and participatory democracy at the local level, and identifies the laws ...
Civil participation policy and democratic innovation in the autonomous community of Aragon
The increasing complexity of our society requires mechanisms of democratic innovation that enrich the system of representative democracy to increase citizens’ knowledge and experiences, thus improving the qua...
Participation and Decentralisation: The Case of Andalusia
In the Bill of Rights of the Andalusian Statute of Autonomy, right to participation is extremely well-developed and is not restricted to the traditional rights to political participation, but rather is extended...
Participatory democracy is a theme of growing interest in Italy, in both cultural debate and administrative practice. Some Regions have felt a need to provide a legislative framework in order to facilitate and ...
The Regional Construction of a Citizen Participation Model: Experiences and Elements of the Debate on Participatory Democracy
This study offers a reflection on the current developments in participatory democracy at the regional level. Besides providing a descriptive analysis of the instruments put into practice through different legal...
The homogeneity of the regulations governing the electoral systems of autonomous communities derives from their desire to imitate the system adopted for the Spanish Chamber of Deputies, and from their...
The referendum and popular consultations in the Autonomous State
The referendum is a poorly used mechanism for direct participation in the Spanish system, at both state and regional level. The discussion on the feasibility of this system at regional level has been examined b...
Regional electoral legislation in Italy. A short essay on the rise and fall of the myth of territorial differentiation
Up to 15 years ago the Constitution entrusted State law with the task of regulating the election system of regional councillors. Since the nineties there have been radical changes in the provisions (constitutio...
The right to petition is an instrument of popular participation whereby citizens are allowed to apply to an authority for the purpose of representing certain needs or to seek the adoption of specific actions. W...
Popular Legislative Initiative in the Autonomous Communities
The Spanish Constitution has strict regulations regarding direct and participatory democratic mechanisms (referendum, popular legislative initiative). The Constitution has adopted the most restrictive popular l...
The instruments of people’s participation found in the “first generation” Statutes (1971) were initially perceived as a further possible link between politics and civil society, in line with the overall f...
Instruments of participation at regional level: an introduction to the Italian framework in new ordinary statutes
The new ordinary statutes of Italian Regions attempt to reconcile the more traditional instruments of representative and direct democracy with the new instruments of participatory democracy. While no original a...
Principles, rights and participatory institutions in the reformed statutes
This article reviews the new approaches to citizen participation introduced by the statutes of autonomy reformed from 2006 onwards. The reform process included the introduction of participatory values and princ...
European cooperation in counter-terrorism and the case of individual sanctions
This paper assesses European cooperation in counter-terrorism, which was prompted by the terrorist attacks at the beginning of this century. The first part of the paper will provide a description of the main fe...
Towards a Federal Democracy in Europe?
The paper endorses a dynamic rather than a static analysis of the EU at super-systemic level of analysis. It sketches a toolkit to analyse the actors and contents of constitutional politics, exploiting the insi...
Redefining Parliamentary Sovereignty: The Example of the Devolution Referenda
The goal of this paper is to draw attention to a critical issue regarding the decline in the traditional doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom. Devolution has proven to be a serious threat...
Federalism, Fiscal Federalism and Health Federalism: Standard Costs in Legislative Decree No. 68 of May 6th, 2011
This paper analyses the regulation of standard costs in Legislative Decree No. 68/2011. It begins with an examination of some concepts that are often confused in the scientific and political debate, such as f...
According to the ‘Defense Strategic Guidance’ (2012), the growing military capabilities of US allies will create new opportunities for sharing responsibilities in world affairs. The US strategic document co...
The European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights two years later
After the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights has found a place among the formal sources of EU law, and has become a standard of review for the validity o...
We're one, but we're not the same: Enhanced Cooperation and the Tension between Unity and Asymmetry in the EU
The aim of this article is to analyse one of the main features of asymmetry in the EU legal order: enhanced cooperation. After the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, two enhanced cooperation schemes (on div...
EU Citizenship, Naturalisations, and Mythical Cultural Exceptionalism in Europe Today
This essay discusses the dubious premises of ‘repressive liberalism’ underlying the policies of cultural ‘integration’ that have been adopted by a number of otherwise liberal democracies around the worl...
Protection of EU citizens abroad: A legal assessment of the EU citizen’s right to consular and diplomatic protection
The wide range of disasters that has recently hit third countries has shown that not even the Member States with the widest network of consular and diplomatic representation can ensure on their own the protecti...
Identity vs. representation: what makes ‘the people’? Rethinking democratic citizenship through (and beyond) Carl Schmitt and Hans Kelsen
The concept of ‘citizenship’ has significantly evolved since the work by Thomas Marshall in 1950: the emergence of various kinds of ‘identity/difference’ politics, the transformation of political rep...
This paper critically assesses the EU’s anti-piracy operation Atalanta in the light of the protection of Union citizens. The main question is to which extent a Union citizen threatened by pirates off t...
“Euro-Bonds” The Ruiz Zambrano judgment or the Real Invention of EU Citizenship
This paper aims to provide a brief analysis of the Ruiz Zambrano judgment (Case C-34/09). Traditionally, the EU citizenship has been mainly construed as a status of integration into the Membe...
This essay proposes that the emergence and failure of the debate on the EU constitutional reform depends, amongst other things, on the rise of what it calls ‘publicity’ as public policy and governance fun...
Constitutional Interpretation in Federations and its Impact on the Federal Balance
Most of the existing literature on judicial interpretation of federal constitutions focuses either on individual federations or on comparative studies of specific judicial techniques and/or specific fields. Thi...
For decades the US has had a hegemonic position in the Middle East. A key country in this respect has been Egypt. However, in recent decades the EU has made itself increasingly felt in the region. Due to enlarg...
One Mountain with Two Tigers- China and the United States in East Asian Regionalism
Li Xing- Zhang Shengjun
The article argues that regionalism in East Asia since the end of the Cold War has been largely shaped by the interactions of China-US relations, influencing and determining the development and transformation o...
The article looks at federalism as applied in Africa in the dual sense of a devolution of power from what would otherwise be unitary and centralised states to lower levels of governance and a transferral of aut...
How to ‘connect’ micro-regions with macro-regions?
Sub-national regions (micro-regions) and supra-national regions (macro-regions) appear as disconnected concepts in the academic literature. They are studied by distinct academic communities between which there ...
The purpose of this article is to propose a draft for an analytical frame for analyzing regional integration consisting of federalism theory and neo-functionalism. It starts out discussing the concept of region...
Federalism, neo-functionalism and realism-intergovernmentalism offer different visions of European unity, evident in different European organizations such as the Council of Europe to the ECSC, EEC/EC/EU, and EF...
The transfer of State Property to Regions and Local Authorities within the Italian Fiscal Federalism Reform
The present article examines the process concerning the transfer of State Property to Regions and Local Authorities, recently introduced in Italy pursuant to Decree 85/2010. The transfer of State owned assets a...
A World Currency for a World New Deal
The wars in western Asia and the financial crisis of 2007-2008 spelt the end of the American attempt to global suprema...
The Indian and Chinese policies towards Africa: a veritable challenge to EU-led interregionalism?
This paper aims to analyze comparatively EU’s, China’s and India’s diverging designs for the governance of Africa. The paper addresses one fundamental research question: to what extent do the Chinese and ...
Ethno-regionalist parties in Europe: a typology
EU’s Projection of Security Peace Missions as a Tool either for Fusion or Fragmentation
If one looks at the rapid growth of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) since the Blair-Chirac meeting of Saint-Malo in 1998 and in particular at the launch of several crisis management missions it is...
Paola Bilancia - Francesco Palermo - Ornella Porchia
Italian Regions and Local Authorities within the framework of a new Autonomist System
The view prevailing among legal scholars - and endorsed in this paper - is that the coming into force of the reform of Title V, Part 2, of the Constitution introduced a multi-polar institutional framework in ...
Global Imbalances and the Transition to a Symmetric World Monetary System
Riccardo Fiorentini-Guido Montani
This article investigates some of the causes of the financial crisis – global imbalances and unsatisfactory regulation of world liquidity – and supports the need to reform the present asymmetric internation...
The Italian Parliament paves the way to fiscal federalism
This article examines law no. 42 of 2009 which, in accordance with art. 119 of the Constitution, opens the way to the introduction of “fiscal federalism” in Italy. The new law falls within the sphere of the...
The impact of the cohesion policies on the Form of Union
From a “formalistic” point of view the Regions are and have been neglected (especially in the past) in the EU law context. To express such a situation the German constitutional lawyers used the formula "Lan...
The Role and Power of the European and the National Parliaments in the Dynamics of Integration
This essay aims at giving an overview on the role of the European and national Parliaments in the dynamics of integration. After resuming the main issues that such a subject present, the author analyses the ...
Which European Response to the Financial Crisis?
The reaction of the European Union to the financial crisis consisted mainly in uncoordinated national plans. A real European recovery plan would have been more effective, but it was not possible because the ...
After the end of the Cold War, peacekeeping operations have increasingly been launched by new actors (such as regional organizations and ad hoc coalitions) despite the continued and important role of the United...