Ingolf Pernice is professor at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on the chair for Public law, International and European law since 1996. He has served as a member of the Legal Service of the European Commission during ten years and held the chair for Public law, International and European law at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University of Frankfurt a.M. for three years. As Director of the Walter Hallstein-Institut for European Constitutional Law, which he founded in 1997 ( and coordinator of the European Constitutional Law Network( he deals with international environmental law and, in particular, with the European constitutionalprocess. He has published numerous articles on these issues and given practical advice to the German government and to the European institutions. He is editing three series of books making the contributions to the annual symposia (ECLN-series) and the lectures of heads of state and government (“Humboldt-Reden zu Europa”) and of other specialists of European affairs (“Forum Constitutionis Europae”), which he organizes, available to the public. He is the Speaker of the DFG Research Training Group on “Multilevel Constitutionalism. European Experiences and Global Perspectives” which he initiated in 2006 and gets in its second phase in 2011. He is member of the Advisory Board of several journals and involved in three master-programs for European studies. He was acting as the agent for the German Parliament to defend the Treaty of Lisbon in the case pending before the German Federal Constitutional Court. He is advising German and European institutions on questions of European law. He was awarded the Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2008. From September 2008 until June 2009 he was invited as a Senior Research Fellow in the LAPA-Program of the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affaires and served as Visiting Professor to the Princeton University from January to June 2009. After return to Berlin he concentrates on a book on European Constitutional Law.

Ingolf Pernice, LAPA Fellow and Walter Hallstein-Institut of European Constitutional Law

Possible Meaning and Implications of Global Constitutionalism

March 30, 2009, 4:30-6 PM, Kerstetter Room, Marx Hall

In recent years, we have seen extraordinary developments in international law and practice, global governance, networks and fragmentation, as well as experiences of the European Union in search of a new way to organize the societies of its Member States in a supranational political system. These developments are prompting academic discussions about the constitutionalization of international law and about global constitutionalism. In an attempt to understand what all this means and what it could possibly imply in practice, I propose to distinguish more systematically among the underlying notions of constitution, constitutionalism and constitutionalization in order to uncover the extent to which they can be used for describing the evolving new world order. I offer the concept of “multilevel constitutionalism”, developed in the EU, in order to give “global constitutionalism” a specific meaning as a frame for analyzing the evolving global structures in the context of regional organizations, national constitutions and the political status of the individual.

The paper includes the draft introduction and the theoretical Chapter 2 of a book project in preparation.

The central proposals of this paper are based upon the assumption that in modern societies it is the individual from the perspective of which it is appropriate to assess the constitutional dimension of the evolving system of global governance. On that basis and against the background of the actual discussion on constitutionalism and the constitutionalization of international law and organizations in a fragmented and disaggregated post-Westphalian world, this paper takes from the experiences of the European Union and proposes

  1. To draw a clear distinction between the terms “constitution”, “constitutionalism” and “constitutionalization”, the latter being the process by which a constitution may emerge in accordance with the principles and values of constitutionalism.
  2. A “contractual” concept of constitution, understood as the expression of a permanently renewable consensus in the society upon its political organization, setting up institutions, conferring them powers, organizing decision-making, and the political, social and liberal rights so defining the status of the individuals as citizens of the polity so organized.
  3. A “post-national” concept of constitutionalism with the implication that not only states can have a constitution, but also supra- or international sites of public authority, established by international agreements in accordance with constitutional principles, and that the result may be a pluralism of constitutional settings conflicts between which are settled under specific principles.
  4. Multilevel constitutionalism as a normative theory considering the pluralism of constitutions as a specific feature of a constitutional network of vertical and horizontal relations among national constitutions and the constitutional foundations of supranational and global institutions in such a way that they are interdependent, mutually influential, interacting as parts of a composed global constitutional system.

It is suggested that global constitutionalism understood along these terms can be a useful approach for reconsidering not only the legal structure of the international system under the aspects of democratic legitimacy and the protection of individual rights, but also for raising awareness of the often invisible changes national constitutions undergo as a result of the establishment and action of institutions established beyond the state. This could shed a new light on the existing system of global governance and open new perspectives for developing a pluralist global constitutional system, based upon the rule of law.

List for invitation (apart from all LAPA-people, including visitors and travellers) – to be completed – I would need the advice of Kim for this…

Robert Keohane

Stephen Macedo

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Andrew Moravcsik

Eric Weitz

Sandra Bermann

George Bermann

Sophie Meunier

Stanley N. Katz

Fabian Klose (with Eric Weitz, )

Jean L. Cohen (New York, guest in Schmitt Schmooze)

Peter Quinn (guest in Schmitt Schmooze)

Peter Brooks

Deborah Pearlstein

Jeffrey Dunoff

Christopher Eisgruber

David A Hollander

G John Ilkenberry

Harold James

Nannerl O. Keohane

Peter L. Lindseth

Intisar Rabb

Andrew Arato (guest in Schmitt Schmooze)

Jim Leach

Students from my course (Eva Hermann, Maggie Boberg, Anneliese P. Mondschein, Amanda Toy, Thor Imsdahl, James Mister, Julien Jeanneney)