Altneuland: The Constitution of Europe in an
American Perspective
The Convention on the Future of Europe
has obliged us and we have now a draft Constitution – of sorts. The world
is watching. As are we. The Global Law School Program at NYU and the Woodrow
Wilson School at Princeton in collaboration with our new Journal, I•CON
(the Journal of International Constitutional Law), are teaming up to take a
critical peek at the Draft Constitution. The faces behind the august
institutions are Anne Marie Slaughter (Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School),
Chris Eisgruber (Director of the Princeton Program in Law and Public Affairs),
Michel Rosenfeld from the Cardozo Law School who is the Editor-in-Chief of
I•CON, and Joseph Weiler (Director, Hauser Global Law School Program, NYU
School of Law).
The conference will be special in a
‘double combination’ sense. Firstly, we are trying to bring together
the very best that we are able to attract in Constitutional Theory, drawn both
from Law and Political Science. We believe this disciplinary combination will
in itself facilitate an interesting, critical and consequential conversation.
And secondly there is the European-American thing: Different contexts,
different sensibilities, different pre-conceptions and prejudices, different
blind spots – again, a potent mixture.
Whatever the end game among the
governments of the Member States, the outcome (even if a failure) will be of
considerable constitutional significance. It is all taking place alongside the
Enlargement of Europe from 15 to 25 Member States. Not only are the political
stakes very high, but the theoretical conundrums are both interesting and
challenging: The vocabulary is explicitly constitutional and equally explicitly
not that of State or Nation building.
The results of the Conference will be
published in the Jean Monnet Working Paper Series; we will publish a selection
in a Special Issue of I•CON and, quite likely, the entire collection in a
book.
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