GLOBALIZATION WORKSHOP

presents

Neil Walker

European University Institute

Taking Constitutionalism Beyond the State

Thursday, September 20, 2007

4:10 - 6:00

Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall

84 Queen's Park

In recent years, the  idea that constitutional modes of government are exclusive to states has become  the subject of sustained challenge. This is due to  the development in regional and global  sites of   regulatory institutions and practices which meet criteria normally associated with constitutional governance, as well as to the growing tendency towards  the affirmative or critical conceptualisation of these existing or alternative post-state institutions and practices in constitutional terms. The aim of the  essay is threefold. It asks why taking constitutionalism beyond the state might be viewed as an innovation worthy of comment and in need of explanation and justification, a question that requires us to engage with the definition of constitutionalism and with the contestation surrounding that definition. Secondly, and on the basis of these definitional concerns and conclusions, it specifies and elaborates upon  the main dimensions of constitutionalism and of its post-state development. Thirdly, and joining the concerns of the first two sections, it seeks to identify the key current tensions - or antinomies - surrounding the growth of post-state constitutionalism with a view to identifying what is vitally at stake in the future career of this concept.

Neil Walker has been Professor of Law at the European University Institute in Florence since 2000. Previously he was Professor of Legal and Constitutional Theory at the University of Aberdeen (from 1995-200), and before that he taught public law at the University of Edinburgh for 10 years. Between 2003 and 2005 he was the first holder of the position of Dean of the European University Institute. During 2007, alongside his EUI Chair he holds  the position of Honorary Tercentenary Professor of Law at the University of Edinburgh, as a prelude to his full-time return to Edinburgh in 2008 where he will take up the position (vacated by Sir Neil MacCormick) of Regius Professor of Public Law. He has also held various Visiting Professorships in Europe and North America.  Neil Walker is an internationally renowned  expert in constitutional theory, with particular reference to constitutional arrangements in transnational settings such as the European Union. As such, he has been a prominent contributor to the debate on the adoption of a Constitution for the European Union. He is also an acknowledged expert on matters of policing and security. He has written over 100 books and articles on these subjects. Publications in 2007 include a new monograph (with Ian Loader) published by Cambridge University Press entitled Civilizing Security, and a new edited collection of essays (with Martin Loughlin) published by Oxford University Press  entitled The Paradox of Constitutionalism.

Refreshments will be served.

For more information about this workshop, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca