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Spreading Democracy and the Rule of Law?
The accession of eight post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (and also of Malta and Cyprus) to the European Union in 2004 has been heralded as perhaps the most important development in the history of European integration so far. While the impact of the enlargement on the constitutional structures and practices of the EU has already generated a rich scholarly literature, the influence of the accession on constitutionalism, democracy, human rights and the rule of law among the new member states has been largely ignored. This book fills this gap, and addresses the question of the consequences of the "external force" of European enlargement upon the understanding and practice of democracy and the rule of law and among both the main legal-political actors and the general public in the new member-states. A number of leading legal scholars, sociologists and political scientists, both from Central and Eastern Europe and from outside, address these issues in a systematic and critical way. Taken together, these essays help answer a fundamental question: does the European Union have the potential of promoting and consolidate democracy and human rights?
The Abuse of Constitutional Identity in the European Union
The idea of constitutional identity has been central to the negotiation of authority between EU and national constitutional orders. Many national constitutional courts have declared that the reach of EU law is limited by certain core elements of the national constitution, often labelled 'constitutional identity'. With the rise of illiberal democracies within the EU, the idea of constitutional identity has increasingly come under criticism, being seen as easily embedded in authoritarian, nativist rhetoric and vulnerable to being abused. In The Abuse of Constitutional Identity in the European Union, Julian Scholtes provides novel insights into how European authoritarians have utilised the conc...
A Rule of Law for Our New Age of Anxiety
In an age of anxiety, Toope makes the case for a revitalised rule of law to bolster collective resilience and restore our capacity to build healthier societies. A pragmatic approach to the rule of law recognises its ability to chasten power, while not disconnecting law from other sources of social action and human agency.
Rethinking the Rule of Law after Communism
In the original euphoria that attended the virtually simultaneous demise of so many dictatorships in the late 1980s and early 90s, there was a widespread belief that problems of 'transition' basically involved shedding a known past, and replacing it with an also-known future. This volume surveys and contributes to the prolific debates that occurred in the years between the collapse of communism and the enlargement of the European Union regarding the issues of constitutionalism, dealing with the past, and the rule of law in the post-communist world. Eminent scholars explore the issue of transitional justice, highlighting the distinct roles of legal and constitutional bodies in the post-transition period. The introduction seeks to frame the work as an intervention in the discussion of communism and transition-two stable and separate points-while emphasizing the instability of the post-transition moment.
Intersections of Law and Memory
This book elaborates a new framework for considering and understanding the relationship between law and memory. How can law influence collective memory? What are the mechanisms law employs to influence social perceptions of the past? And how successful is law in its attempts to rewrite narratives about the past? As the field of memory studies has grown, this book takes a step back from established transitional justice narratives, returning to the core sociological, philosophical and legal theoretical issues that underpin this field. The book then goes on to propose a new approach to the relationship between law and collective memory based on a conception of ‘legal institutions of memory’...
The European Court of Human Rights in the Post-Cold War Era
The European Court of Human Rights in the Post-Cold War Era: Universality in Transition examines transitional justice from the perspective of its impact on the universality of human rights, taking the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights as its detailed case study. The problem is twofold: there are questions about differences in human rights standards between transitional and non-transitional situations, and about differences between transitions. The European Court has been a vital part of European democratic consolidation and integration for over half a century, setting meaningful standards and offering legal remedies to the individually repressed, the politically vulnerable,...
Law and the Politics of Reconciliation
This collection of essays by an international group of authors explores the ways in which law and legal institutions are used in countries coming to terms with traumatic pasts and, in some cases, traumatic presents. In putting to question what is often taken for granted in uncritical calls for reconciliation, it critically analyses and frequently challenges the political and legal assumptions underlying discourses of reconciliation. Drawing on a broad spectrum of disciplinary and interdisciplinary insights the authors examine how competing conceptions of law, time, and politics are deployed in social transformations and how pressing demands for reconstruction, reconciliation, and justice inform and respond to legal categories and their use of time. The book is genuinely interdisciplinary, drawing on work in politics, philosophy, theology, sociology and law. It will appeal to a wide audience of researchers and academics working in these areas.
Judicial Accountabilities in New Europe
This volume focuses on a highly challenging aspect of all European democracies, namely the issue of combining guarantees of judicial independence and mechanisms of judicial accountability. It does so by filling the gap in European scholarship between the two policy sectors of enlargement and judicial cooperation and by taking full stock of an interdisciplinary literature, spanning from comparative politics, socio-legal studies and European studies. Judicial Accountabilities in New Europe presents an insightful account of the judicial reforms adopted by new member States to embed the principle of the rule of law in their democratic institutions, along with the guidelines of quality of justice promoted by European institutions in all member States.
Post-communist Restitution and the Rule of Law
Eastern European societies underwent large-scale deprivations of property by the authoritarian regimes, beginning after World War II, largely ending with the last waves of the kolkhoz movement in the early 1960s. Kuti examines property reparations that took place after 1989, from the perspective of constitutional justice, the rule of law, but also from the point of view of identity politics. A controversial and at times contentious issue is tackled here, effecting people's lives and material situations drastically whilst touching upon the raw nerves of history. Kuti compares property restitution schemes in the Baltic States, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Argues that the aims of compensation and reparation were coupled with goals of structural reform. Provides an international perspective, through extensive reference to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as to some other jurisdictions confronted with indigenous peoples' claims. The inquiry concludes that the ideals of rule of law and justice cannot lead to consistent solutions in this problem, and the presence of an imperfect theorization is demonstrated.
Lethe's Law
Comparing the law's efforts to deal with the past, these 12 essays address matters of criminal responsibility, amnesty, time, memory, and reconciliation. The relationships between justice, the law, and politics are explored with concern to recent changes in the nature and responsibilities of each. Attention is given to the experiences of Eastern Europe, Germany, South Africa, Israel, and Australia. Contributors include legal scholars, philosophers, and social scientists from Europe, Israel, South Africa, Canada, and Australia. The book is distributed in the US by ISBS. c. Book News Inc.
