Since the beginning of modernity, the use of rhetoric have prevailed; that is, the technique of perverting the language giving concepts different meanings presuming nothing have changed when in fact, it has occurred. The same thing happens with the concept of Constitution, it has been completelymodified its sense from the progress of individual rights moral. In this article the intention is to demonstrate the nature of this change and at the same time claim on the «old constitutionalism» validity and also the rule of law and political will beginning on a critical reading of contemporary constitutionalism and considering its tendency to constitutionalize or materialize the law, ironically risking the same values intended to defend. / Desde inicios de la modernidad se ha venido imponiendo el empleo de la retórica, es decir, la técnica de pervertir el lenguaje dotando a los conceptos de distintos significados para presumir que nada ha cambiado cuando en realidad sí se ha dado el cambio. Esto mismo acontece con el concepto de Constitución, que ha modificado completamente su sentido apartir del avance de la moral de los derechos individuales. Este texto pretende mostrar la naturaleza de este cambio y reivindicar a su vez la vigencia del «viejo constitucionalismo» y el imperio de la ley y la decisión política a partir de una lectura crítica del constitucionalismo contemporáneo y su tendencia a constitucionalizar o materializar el derecho, contribuyendo paradójicamente a poner en riesgo los valores que pretende defender.

Emergente a partir do final do século XX, o constitucionalismo popular enquanto campo acadêmico, tem buscado desconstruir a narrativa que legitima a afirmação da supremacia do judicial review estadunidense. Segundo seus expoentes, o melhor desenho envolveria a interpretação política, e não legal, da Constituição. Selecionados os exemplos de Larry Kramer, Mark Tushnet e Jeremy Waldron, o trabalho buscará abordar seus argumentos desde um ponto de vista individual, mas também os elementos que lhes são comuns. Nesse sentido, além da ofensiva à revisão judicial, busca-se identificar os debates que se fazem presentes, e atravessam o campo, tais como a utilidade de um tribunal que traga estabilidade ao sistema político, a ideia de melhor intérprete, a questão contramajoritária e o ideal de autogoverno democrático, em uma sociedade contemporânea atravessada pelo desacordo. Considerados os argumentos, busco chamar a atenção para a parcialidade do pensamento dominante, cuja recepção se ampara sobre bases problemáticas. / Since the late twentieth century, popular constitutionalism has risen as an academic field that seeks deconstructing the narrative that justifies the affirmation of the supremacy of the American judicial review. According to its supporters, the best design for it would not involve the legal, but the political interpretation of the constitution. Selecting the examples of Larry Kramer, Mark Tushnet and Jeremy Waldron, this work aims at addressing their statements not only as individual points of view, but also considering the elements they have in common. In this sense, besides being an assault on judicial review, this texts focuses on identifying the debates that arise and crisscross the field, such as the usefulness of a court which brings stability to the political system, the idea of best constitutional decision-making, the countermajoritarian difficulty, and the ideal of democratic self-government in a contemporary society pervaded by disagreement. Taking such issues into consideration, I propose drawing attention to the bias of mainstream constitutional thinking, whose reception lies on problematic bases.

This thesis examines how American and German constitutionalism, as shaped by the U.S. Supreme Court and the German Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), have mediated the tension between threats to stability and the imperative of renewal through occasional or constant interventions in their democratic processes. To do this, it primarily assesses the 1960s U.S. reapportionment cases and the European Parliament electoral threshold cases of 2011 and 2014. It also considers the ideas of four thinkers, theorists and jurists who have wrestled with the dilemma of how to maintain the bond between citizen and state: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Hannah Arendt, Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Tocqueville. Stability and renewal represent the twin orientation points for constitutionalism and the courts against which they must adjust to possible democratic threats, or new political and social forces in need of recognition. Threats to the state can emerge either from a surfeit of illiberal views in politics and society aimed at destroying an existing constitutional order, or when democratic channels become starved of new opinions through the constitutional or unconstitutional exclusion of voters and parties. A distinctive feature of the approach taken is the conceptual division between the ‘legal/institutional' space in which the Supreme Court and Bundesverfassungsgericht interpret constitutional meaning, and the ‘civic space' in which citizens accept or reject constitutional meaning. One central question is how American and German constitutionalism, and the U.S. Supreme Court and Bundesverfassungsgericht shape and influence the vital civic space that is integral to the democratic relationship between citizen and state, and the survival of the state itself. Ultimately it is concluded that without acceptance of the importance of law and constitutionalism by citizens in the civic space, the influence of the Supreme Court and the Bundesverfassungsgericht becomes purely institutional and effectively consigned to the courtroom.

L’étude de l’histoire constitutionnelle comparée montre l’essor de la protection du fond et la forme de la Constitution politique. Pour ce faire, le développent des conditions de la création l’implémentation progressive du contrôle a posteriori entre le XVIIIème et XXème, a permis la création d’une actio popularis. Le droit constitutionnel français que le droit constitutionnel colombien possèdent de mécanismes processuels dont les composants favorisent et relient la citoyenneté aux processus qui étaient auparavant à l’usage exclusif de ses représentants. Le but de cette étude est donc de réfléchir sur l’origine des fondements de l’incidence du droit du contentieux constitutionnel dans la préservation de la Constitution comme base de l’État. / If we analyze a posteriori constitutional review of legislation in Comparative law, it will show that State preservation can be made from the individual point of view by an action popularis. Therefore, both the French and the Colombian constitutional law whose components have procedural mechanisms foster a new citizenship in processes that were previously in the hands of their representatives. This essay aims to consider the influences of Procedural Constitutional Law in the preservation of the Constitution as the State’s cornerstone.

After the American Revolution a number of Loyalists, those colonial Americans who remained loyal to England during the War for Independence, did not relocate to the other dominions of the British Empire. Instead, they sought to return to their homes and restart their lives. Despite fierce opposition to their return from all across the Confederation, their attempts to become part of a newly independent America were generally successful. Thus, after several years of struggle most former Loyalists who wanted to return were able to do so. Various studies have concentrated on the wartime activities of Loyalists, but few have examined their post-war return to America. This dissertation corrects this oversight by tracing the process of the reintegration of the Loyalists. It analyzes this development from a primarily American perspective, although former Loyalists are consistent members of the story. The work considers the emotional significance families and friends played in affecting the desire to return. On the American reception of their former enemies, this work explains that the nascent idea of federalism required the process to occur on a state-by-state basis. Also important to Loyalist assimilation was a critical shift from the republican ideological belief in the necessary of virtue to the survival of the community to a growing awareness, tolerance, and respect for individual rights, for those who held views perhaps inimical to the polity. Critical to the process of reintegration was a jurisprudential transformation from an older, English common law understanding of the law to a more modern view that law is commanded by a sovereign. It is my contention that popular sovereignty drove this transformation and allowed for the wartime legal persecution of the Loyalists, but in order for former Loyalists to peacefully co-exist, popular sovereignty had to be reined in by the very same and new legal ideology that it had helped develop. Finally, the process of reintegration required Americans to permit citizenship to their former traitors. Thus, the dissertation closes by showing the procedure former English subjects underwent to renounce their allegiance to England and become republican citizens.

Constitutional change is relentless. Today, states jockey with regional associations, international organizations, transnational networks and sub-state authorities to define the scope of legitimate political conduct and establish rival bases for political affiliation. Constitutional theorists must be resolute but they should not be rigid. Especially in such uncertain conditions, theories are best understood not as plans to be implemented but as hypotheses to be tested. Charles Sabel and David Dyzenhaus write separately but share this pragmatic orientation, in which doubt is indispensable and truth is the end of public inquiry. They also share a distinctive belief that constitutionalism serves a moral end: it is the project of cultivating citizens who conceive their political community in terms of the commitments revealed by its practices. Their position, which is well suited for contemporary challenges, warrants elaboration and examination. British Columbia offers an ideal constitutional laboratory for that test. During the 1970s and 1980s, doubts mounted about the legitimacy of the constitutional settlement imposed by the Crown in the westernmost province of Canada. Legal, political and constitutional decisions raised the possibility that aboriginal rights and title survived colonization and Confederation. Since 1990, their existence has been confirmed in a cascade of constitutional experiments. Those initiatives can be distilled into four procedures: litigation, negotiation, consultation and collaboration. Although they have delivered practical benefits to some indigenous peoples, these procedures have not transformed provincial politics into a moral endeavour. The constraints on constitutionalism in British Columbia are both conceptual and institutional. Despite marginal improvements, those constraints endure and constitutionalism remains for now the sporadic pursuit of a small elite. To conceive constitutionalism as a project is to set a sound but exacting standard. Although British Columbia falls short, its failure is informative: the theory is useful.

The thesis deals with the analysis of the Constution of first half of the 19th century in Habsburg Monarchy (The Pillersdorf constitution, The Kremsier constitution and The Stadion constitution) and with the analysis of the Polish Constitution of 3rd May from the year 1791. The first section describes constitutionalism as a concept. It is followed by an overview of previous historical events, which have great influence of the constitutional progress in the Habsburg monarchy in the previous period. The third chapter describes The Pillersdorf constitution, the fourth chapter is dedicated to The Kremsier consitution (and The Kremsier Assembly) and the fifth chapter discusses The Stadion constitution. Then is following by short section which is evaluating the influence of Austrian constitution on subsequent development of constitutionalism in Habsburg Monarchy. The seventh chapter is devoted to Polish Constitution of 3rd May and describes naturally also historical reasons for adoption of this constitutional text and an internal political situation in Poland especially during the 18th century. The last one but very important chapter consists from comparison of the Polish constitution and of Austrian constitution. This part compares all the constitutional texts in a brief summary and tries to find main...

This thesis examines the practice of parliamentary constitutional interpretation. Parliamentary constitutional interpretation is a form of reasoning used by parliamentarians to articulate the constitutional effect of a Bill, within the legislative process in Parliament. The significance of the practice is explored through a combination of empirical study and theoretical enquiry. The first part of the thesis describes and analyses parliamentary constitutional interpretation in three case studies, each on a different Government Bill from the 2010-2012 parliamentary session. Each study provides a fine-grained account of how parliamentarians interpreted the constitutional effect of each Bill and the role this interpretation played during the passage of the Bill. In order to identify the constitutional effect of a particular clause, parliamentarians interpret a range of constitutional norms including: constitutional principles, constitutional statutes and constitutional conventions. In each case study, parliamentary constitutional interpretation played an important role in shaping the constitutional effect of each Bill and holding the Government to account. The second part of the thesis uses the reality of the practice, as described in the case studies, to identify the value of parliamentary constitutional interpretation and to situate the practice within political constitutionalism. Two principal values of the practice are identified. Firstly, parliamentary constitutional interpretation can enhance the level of justification within the legislative process. Secondly, it can facilitate a distinctively parliamentary contribution to the normative content of the constitution. By expanding the role of legislative politics within the constitution, parliamentary constitutional interpretation can develop and strengthen the political model of constitutionalism. These values also serve as both a template for analysis of parliamentary performance and as a guide to parliamentary reform.

International investment law has been developing for centuries. During the development process of international investment law, legal norms and principles of international investment law are evolved and shaped as sui generis nature, and separate legal regime as a branch of international law. The contemporary international investment law, according to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development data, currently, 2283 BITs and 280 other investment agreements are in force in international investment system, and high numbers of disputes are pending in different international dispute settlement bodies. These international investment agreements are interpreted and applied by arbitrators at different investor-state dispute settlement institutions or in ad-hoc arbitrations. Different interpretations and paradoxical arbitration awards cause critics regarding consistency, coherence and uniformity issues of the international investment law regime. Given the characteristics of international investment law regime, this thesis aims to study the institutionalisation and constitutionalisation processes of the international investment law regime. Moreover, the thesis attempts to ascertain consistent means by examining the nature of the international investment law regime and its institutionalisation and constitutionalisation processes to solve the issues associated with uniformity consistency and coherence. This thesis can also provide guidance and some recommendations that would have a chance of being carried out regarding new trends and developments of the international investment regime. Therefore, the major concern of this research is to understand the suitability of institutionalisation and constitutionalisation to sustain more consistent, coherent and uniform international investment law regime. In the first part of the research project, the nature of international investment law and its interaction with other international law systems, definitions and the necessity of uniformity, coherence and consistency are scrutinized. The second part starts with the solutions in the literature and their overview, and then institutionalisation and constitutionalisation are discussed. In the last part of this research, the energy sector and the Energy Charter Treaty are examine as case study, trying to understand the current creation of a uniform, coherent and consistent international investment regime in the energy sector. This thesis illustrates the nature of the international investment law regime and concepts of institutionalisation and constitutionalisation in legal perspective, as well as analysing coherence, consistency and uniformity issues of the international investment law regime. This project shows institutionalisation and constitutionalisation are developing processes in international investment law regime and they are consistent with the current global trends and developments of the international investment law regime as a branch of international law. The thesis suggests, despite the presence of the uniformity, consistency and coherence issues in international investment law regime, the international investment regime is the compulsory element of world globalisation, and those issues may be solved via applying new approaches that are consistent with the international investment regime’s sui generis nature and its evolving process. This thesis shows institutionalisation and constitutionalisation are congruent with the sui generis nature of international investment regime and contemporary trends and developments.

Malgré la distance entre ces deux mouvements révolutionnaires, est-européens et du monde arabe, le constitutionnalisme a été le moyen immédiat pour sortir du chaos révolutionnaire. Dans ces deux parties du monde, à deux périodes différentes, les peuples révolutionnaires ont choisi d’adopter des Constituons afin d’instaurer des régimes politiques démocratiques.Si le constitutionnalisme a été le dénominateur commun que les peuples révolutionnaires ont utilisé pour instaurer leurs nouveaux régimes politiques qu’ils souhaitent démocratiques, pour autant, la singularité de chaque région et de chaque pays s’est imposée lors de la transition, mais également lors de l’adoption des nouvelles Constitutions. Déjà, il suffit d’observer la situation de la Pologne, de la Roumanie, de l’Égypte et de la Tunisie pour constater que la voie empruntée pour adopter un nouveau régime politique dépend nécessairement du contexte national dans lequel la transition est engagée.Néanmoins, la démocratie ne se décrète pas comme nous avons eu l’occasion de le voir en Europe de l’Est. Les États postcommunistes, notamment la Pologne et la Roumanie, tergiversent encore sur le chemin de la démocratisation. Les États arabes trouveront sur le chemin de la démocratisation certainement les mêmes défis. Quelques années après le « printemps arabe », la Tunisie, et encore davantage l’Égypte, vacillent sur le chemin risqué de la démocratisation. / Despite the distance between these two revolutionary movements: East European and the Arab world, constitutionalism was the immediate way out of the revolutionary chaos. In these two parts of the world, at two different periods, the revolutionary peoples have chosen to adopt Constitutions in order to establish democratic political regimes. While constitutionalism has been the common denominator that revolutionary peoples have used to create their new democratic political regimes, the singularity of each region and country has emerged during the transition of the adoption of the new Constitutions. It is simply enough to observe the situation in Poland, Romania, Egypt and Tunisia to find that the path taken to adopt a new political regime necessarily depends on the national context in which the transition is initiated. Nevertheless, democracy cannot be decreed as we have seen in Eastern Europe. The post-communist states, notably Poland and Romania, are still on the path of democratization and the Arab States will find the same challenges on the road to democratization. A few years after the "Arab spring" occurred, Tunisia and particularly Egypt falter on the risky path of democratization.