The reform of the European Constitution continues to dominate news headlines and has provoked a massive debate, unprecedented in the history of EU law. Against this backdrop Monica Claes' book offers a -bottom up- view of how the constitution might work, taking the viewpoint of the national courts as her starting point, and at the same time returning to fundamental principles in order to interrogate the myths of Community law. Adopting a broad, comparative approach, she analyzes the basic doctrines of Community law from both national constitutional perspectives as well as the more usual...

Over the past few decades, European countries have witnessed a proliferation of legal norms concerning marginalized individuals and minorities who increasingly invoke them in front of courts to assert their rights and claim protection. This book explores the relationship between law, rights, and social mobilization in Europe. It specifically inquires into the extent and ways in which legal processes and entitlements are mobilized by less privileged social actors to advance their rights claims and pursue social change. Most distinctly, the book explores such processes in the context of the...

Constitutional discourse in the context of European integration has been both embraced and rejected, and has witnessed the rise and fall of the constitutional treaty, including the turmoil of the failed ratification process. This book discusses the making of a constitutional law for Europe understood in its broadest sense, as a composite constitution, consisting of constitutional rules and principles developed at the European level, complemented by national constitutional rules and principles as well as rules and principles from other sources such as the European Convention on Human Rights...

This book offers a deeper understanding of the dynamics and challenges faced by the ongoing development of European constitutional law. The content and form of European constitutional law are shaped by rules, principles and values found partly in European law and partly in (common) national constitutional norms and international documents, especially the European Convention on Human Rights. Taking the multifaceted and multidirectional nature of European constitutional law as their starting point, the essays in this book are organised around three central themes. The first draws attention to...