Learning Outcomes

This seminar seeks to rethink traditional features of constitutional theory and constitutional law in the light of globalization. In the same way we can identify a developing pan-European constitutional order, so can we recognize the evolution of new legal, institutional and normative global processes. Students will be able to critically reflect on current constitutional challenges, such as: how sovereignty, democracy, and the concept of nation-state are being metamorphosed by increased supranational integration; state’s loss of centrality to the sphere of influence of international institutions, transnational non-governmental organizations or multilateral companies; the impact of judicial and economic globalization on the domestic legal orders; the interactions between supranational organizations and domestic constitutional law; how global scholarship is moving from clear-cut division between national and international law to refined concepts of interdependence between several constitutional layers of law. 

Syllabus

1. Transnational constitutional law
   a) Core meaning;
   Overlapping concepts (common constitutional traditions, comparative constitutional law, foreign/domestic constitutional law, international law);
   c) Is constitutional law universal? Constitutional sovereigntists versus global constitutionalists.
    
2.  Supranational integration beyond the state
   a) European Union;
   b) Regional International Law (Council of Europe);
   c) International Global Law.
    
3.  International convergence of constitutional norms and transjudicial dialogue
   a) Which liberal democracies count? Only Europe and North America? Advocacy of a genuine transnational and cross-cultural dialogue;
   b) United States exceptionalism, originalism and aversion to comparative constitutional law;
   c) Transition to comparative constitutional studies (relevance of joining theory and data - towards joint normative and empirical studies). 
    
4.  Transnational law in context (global agencies, internet law, antiterrorism law).

Over the next five academic years, the International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism and the Porto School of the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Portugal will award the Professor Doutor Miguel Poiares Maduro Prize to the graduate who presents the best written work in this seminar with a cash prize of 200€.