Full Description
The world appears to be globalising economically, technologically and even, to a halting extent, politically. This process of globalisation raises the possibility of an international legal framework, a possibility which has gained pressing relevance in the wake of the recent global economic crisis. But for any international legal framework to exist, normative agreement between countries, with very different political, economic, cultural and legal traditions, becomes necessary.
This work explores the possibility of such a normative agreement through the prism of national constitutional norms. Since 1945, more than a hundred countries have adopted constitutional texts which incorporate, at least in part, a Bill of Rights. These texts reveal significant similarities; the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for instance, had a marked influence on the drafting of the Bill of Rights for South Africa, New Zealand and Hong Kong as well as the Basic Law of Israel. Similarly, the drafts of Eastern European constitutions reflect significant borrowing from older texts.
The essays in this book examine the depth of these similarities; in particular the extent to which textual borrowings point to the development of foundational values in these different national legal systems and the extent of the similarities or differences between these values and the priorities accorded to them. From these national studies the work analyses the rise of constitutionalism since the Second World War, and charts the possibility of a consensus on values which might plausibly underpin an effective and legitimate international legal order.
Contents
1. Introduction
Dennis Davis, Alan Richter and Cheryl Saunders
2. Values in Australian Constitutionalism
Cheryl Saunders and Megan Donaldson
3. Global Values and Local Realities: Brazilian Constitutional Law
Fábio Carvalho Leite and Florian F Hoffmann
4. Canada
Lorraine E Weinrib
5. Constitutions and Values in Three Chinese Societies
Albert HY Chen
6. Human Dignity, Individual Rights and Equality: The Core Values of the Finnish Constitutional Act
Martta October and Riikka Salonen
7. Constitutional and Legal Framework for Rights Protection in France
Michel Troper
8. Values in German Constitutional Law
Dieter Grimm
9. Crafting Constitutional Values: An Examination of the Supreme Court of India
Menaka Guruswamy
10. Values in Iranian Constitutional Law
Nazila Ghanea
11. Global Values and Local Realities: The Case of Israeli Constitutional Law
Aeyal M Gross
12. Japan
Yasuo Hasebe
13. Values in the South African Constitution
Catherine Albertyn
14. Values in the UK Constitution
Jeffrey Jowell and Colm O'Cinneide
15. Global Constitutional Values in the United States
Ruti Teitel
16. Global Values in the Venezuelan Constitution: Some Prioritisations and Several Incongruences
Allan R Brewer-Carías
17. Conclusion
Dennis Davis, Alan Richter and Cheryl Saunders
