Neutralizing the sovereignty question: Compromise strategies in constitutional argumentation before European integration and since

European Constitutional Law Review

Volumn 2, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 375-397

  Jakab, András ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Agent strategy; Austria; Chaining strategy; Compromise strategies; Constitutional argumentation; Disarmament strategy; European integration; France; Germany; Hungary; Institutionalising strategy; Mystifying strategy; Neutralizing strategy; Sharing strategy; Sovereignty; Substituting strategy; United Kingdom; Westphalian paradigm

Indexed keywords

EID: 35348946987     PISSN: 15740196     EISSN: 17445515     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1574019606003750     Document Type: Article

References (146)

1. This article is based on a lecture held at the Zlatibor Winter School of the University of Kragujevac (Serbia) on 24 Feb. 2005. For valuable remarks and insightful criticism, I am grateful to the participants of the research seminar at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg) on 6 July 2005, to the participants of the Interdisciplinary Symposium of the University of Aberdeen on 15 Feb. 2006, further to Armin von Bogdandy, Irène Couzigou, Luc Heuschling, Niels Petersen, Pál Sonnevend, Péter Takács, Akos Toth, Neil Walker, Lorenzo Zucca, and to the anonymous reviewer.
2. On the theological origins of legal concepts, see Carl Schmitt, Political Theology (Cambridge, Mass., 1985) p. 36.
3. Hans G. Petersmann, Die Souveränität des Britischen Parlaments in den Europäischen Gemeinschaften (Baden-Baden, 1972) p. 233-239.
4. The expression 'Parliamentary Sovereignty' is imprecise; as the highest law-making power does not lie with the Parliament but with 'King-in-Parliament' (by his royal assent), see Theo Langheid, Souveränität und Verfassungsstaat. The Sovereignty of Parliament (Köln, 1984) p. 328-329 - even if the monarch did not refuse the royal assent to a bill in the last three centuries,
5. see Christopher Hollis, Parliament and its Sovereignty (London e.a., 1973) p. 171. If we define Parliament as tripartite (monarch, House of Commons and House of Lords together), then the expression 'Parliamentary Sovereignty' can be accepted,
6. see H.T. Dickinson & Michael Lynch, 'Introduction, in H.T. Dickinson & Michael Lynch (eds.), The Challenge to Westminster. Sovereignty, Devolution and Independence (East Linton, 2000) p. 1.
7. William Blackstone, An analysis of the laws of England, 6th edn. (Oxford, 177 1) p. 3. We should not confuse this legal problem ('legal sovereignty') with the question, which organ's will or body prevails normally in political practice ('political sovereignty' lying in England with the House of Commons or eventually rather with the electorate),
8. see Albert Venn Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 10th edn. (London & New York, 1959) p. 73-74.
9. The law-making by 'King-in-Parliament' is consistent both with the idea that law-making authority belongs to the monarch who chooses to exercise this right only with the consent of his subjects, and with the idea that authority belongs to the whole community, see Jeffrey Goldsworthy, 'The Development of Parliamentary Sovereignty, in H.T. Dickinson & Michael Lynch (eds.), The Challenge to Westminster. Sovereignty, Devolution and Independence (East Linton, 2000) p. 12 and 14.
10. Cf. the failure of Sir Edward Coke to declare void a statute in the Doctor Bonham's case (1610), Jeffrey Goldsworthy, Parliamentary Sovereignty (Oxford, 1999) p. 111-112 and 122-123.
11. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du Contrat Social (Amsterdam, 1762).
12. Cf. Michel Troper, La théorie du droit. le droit, l'Etat (Paris, 2001) p. 302: 'La nation est distincte du peuple réel; c'est une entité abstraite'.
13. Sieyès, Quest-ce que le Tiers Etat? (s. 1., 1789).
14. On the origins of the concept of national sovereignty, see Guillaume Bacot, Carré de Malberg et l'origine de la distinction entre souveraineté du peuple et souveraineté nationale (Paris, 1985).
15. Art. 3 of the Declaration of Human and Citizen's Rights: 'The principle of all sovereignty lies essentially in the Nation. No body, no individual may exercise any authority that does not expressly emanate from it.' Title III Articles 1 and 2 of France's first written Constitution of 3 Sept. 1791: '(1) Sovereignty is one, and cannot be divided, alienated or extinguished. It belongs to the Nation, and no section of the people, nor any individual, may claim to exercise it. (2) The Nation, from which all powers stem, may only exercise them by delegation.'
16. Jacques Ziller, 'Sovereignty in France: Getting Rid of the Mal de Bodin', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 261-277.
17. Florence Chaltiel, La souveraineté de l'Etat et l'Union européenne, l'exemple français (Paris, 1999) p. 64-65. The French expression 'souveraineté de l'Etat' corresponds to the external aspect, as opposed to the internal aspect, the ' souveraineté dans l'Etat',
18. see Jean Gicquel, Droit constitutionnel et institutions politiques, 15th edn. (Paris, 1997) p. 53.
19. The very same formula was enacted already in Art. 3 of the 1946 Constitution (Fourth Republic).
20. Decision 85-197 DC 23 August 1985, see Ziller, supra n. 13, p. 268.
21. There remained, however, some rare exceptions: The Constitutional Council denied any review of amendments of the Constitution (either by the Parliament or by a referendum), see decision 2003-469 DC of 26 March 2003, and the review of any legislation approved in a referendum,
22. see decision 92-313 DC of 23 Sept. 1992 (Maastricht III). Or, to put it simply: A 'loi votée' has to respect the Constitution only if it is not a constitutional amendment (by Parliament or by referendum) and if it is voted merely by Parliament (i.e., without a referendum).
23. Michael Stolleis, Public Law in Germany 1800-1914 (Oxford, 2001) p. 343-347.
24. Hermann Heller, Die Souveränität (Berlin, 1927) p. 59.
25. Helmut Quaritsch, Staat und Souveränität (Frankfurt aM, 1970) p. 471-505.
26. This conceptual solution has led also to the current situation in German scholarship in which sovereignty as such is not really a topic, but rather 'statehood' serves as the central concept, see, e.g., Peter Badura, Staatsrecht, 3rd edn. (München, 2003) p. 1-5;
27. Theodor Maunz & Reinhold Zippelius, Deutsches Staatsrecht, 30th edn. (München, 1998) p. 1-3;
28. Hartmut Maurer, Staatsrecht I (München, 2003) p. 1-6.
29. Instead of the French 'general will' the German doctrine used the 'state will' as being behind the law-making process ( Staatswillenspositivismus). The question of why the state has legitimacy for law-making was answered in a very specific way, namely, by the 'doctrine of state goals' (Staatszwecklehre), i.e., a doctrine explaining why and what a state as such has the imminent right to do in order to achieve specific aspects of the common good. By the emergence of popular sovereignty, the Staatszwecklehre had become outdated and useless (see Christoph Möllers, Staat als Argument (München, 2000) p. 192-198),
30. but the state-centred conceptual framework (also in the traditional German genre of Allgemeine Staatslehre or 'general theory of the state' such as Karl Doehring, Allgemeine Staatslehre, 3rd edn. (Heidelberg, 2004)) is still very influential in Germany's constitutional doctrine,
31. see esp. Josef Isensee, 'Staat und Verfassung', in Josef lsensee & Paul Kirchhof (eds.), Handbuch des Staatsrechts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Vol. II., 3rd edn. (Heidelberg, 2004) p. 3-106.
32. Most constitutional law textbooks still have the title 'state law' ( Staatsrecht), see, e.g., Ekkehart Stein & Götz Frank, Staatsrecht, 19th edn. (Tübingen, 2004);
33. Ulrich Battis & Christoph Gusy, Einführung in das Staatsrecht, 4th edn. (Heidelberg, 1999);
34. Dieter Schmalz, Staatsrecht, 3rd edn. (Baden-Baden, 1996).
35. Art. 1(2): 'State authority derives from the people'.
36. Schmitt, supra n. 2, p. 5. For an account on past and present German constitutional topoi of state of emergency and their context,
37. see András Jakab, 'German Constitutional Law and Doctrine on State of Emergency - Paradigms and Dilemmas of a Traditional (Continental) Discourse', German Law Journal (2006) p. 453-477.
38. The only exception is a referendum on new boundaries between two Länder according to Art. 29 of the Grundgesetz.
39. Sovereignty seems to be similar to the One Ring of the Lord of the Rings that is too dangerous for anybody to use, and mystifies and corrupts everybody bearing it. No moral stance is stronger than that, no will can resist it; it leads even the best to terrible actions. If you bear it, you do not possess it, but it possesses you. You love it, you call it 'My Precious', and you cannot live without it. It becomes even more important than your life.
40. Peter Häberle, Verfassung als öffentlicher Prozeß (Berlin, 1978) p. 368, 395.
41. Similar views from the past by Hugo Krabbe, Lehre der Rechtssouveränität (Groningen, 1906) p. 97,
42. and the German Hugo Preuß, Gemeinde, Staat und Reich (Berlin, 1889) p. 135.
43. For a critique of the concept of fact-based sovereignty of the Hungarian legal theorist, Felix Somló, Juristische Grundlehre (Leipzig, 1917) p. 93, 97-98, 102,
44. see Hans Kelsen, Das Problem der Souveränität und die Theorie des Völkerrechts. Beitrag zu einer reinen Rechtslehre (Tübingen, 1920) p. 31.
45. Somló's doctrine was inspired by Austin's theory of sovereignty in The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (London, 1832)
46. see Somló, ibidem, p. 32-37, 200-204, 248-291, and 353-359.
47. Kelsen, supra n. 28, p. 7.
48. Hans Kelsen, 'Der Wandel des Souveränitätsbegriffes', in Studi filosofico-giuridici dedicati a Giorgio del Vecchio (Modena, 1931) Vol. II, p. 8-9.
49. Kelsen, supra n. 28, p. 10.
50. Id., 13;
51. Hans Kelsen, Allgemeine Staatslehre (Berlin, 1925) p. 103;
52. Hans Kelsen, 'Les rapports de système entre le droit interne et le droit international public', Recueil des Cours (1926) p. 251, 256.
53. Later, though, Kelsen develops an understanding of sovereignty as directness in international law (Hans Kelsen, 'The Principle of Sovereign Equality of States as a Basis for International Organization', Yale Law Journal (1944) p. 208), meaning that a legal order is sovereign when its validity follows directly from international law. In this sense, the state can properly be called sovereign - as opposed to non-sovereign (sub-)states within a federal state. However, at that time, Kelsen was already in the US, and these thoughts were no longer received in Austrian constitutional scholarship.
54. For Kelsen, the grounds of the 'disarmament' were not political, but rather epistemological, see András Jakab, 'Kelsens Völkerrechtslehre zwischen Erkenntnistheorie und Politik', Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht (2004) p. 1052-1053. This is, however, irrelevant from our point of view, because we are interested here in the practical political role of the concept. To put it in other words, Kelsen destroyed the (Austrian) big gun on technical and not on political grounds. The political consequences are the same, i.e., the neutralizing of the concept has been done.
55. Stephanus Werboczy, Opus Tripartitum juris consuetudinarii inclyti regni Hungariae (Vienna, 1517).
56. András Gergely & Gábor Máthé (eds.), The Hungarian State. Thousand Years in Europe (Budapest, 2000) p. 24-28.
57. The crown was holy because it was the crown of Holy Stephan (1000-38), the first king of Hungary, who had Christianised the Hungarians. So the crown also objectified the idea of divine legitimacy that survived (despite of secularisation in civil and political life) until the end of WWII. The secular doctrine of sovereignty was not commensurable with it.
58. See, e.g., Stephan Csekey, Die Verfassung Ungarns (Budapest, 1944) p. 208-218.
59. A referendum on details of transformation in 1989 played an important role in the set-up of the new democratic system. Later on, other referenda decided on both NATO and EU accessions of Hungary.
60. Decision of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, 25/1999. (VII. 7.) AB hat.
61. Géza Kilényi, 'A képviseleti és a közvetlen demokrácia viszonya a magyar államszervezetben' (The Relationship Between Representative and Direct Democracy Within the Hungarian State Structure), Magyar Közigazgatás (Hungarian Administration) (1999) p. 681.
62. Christopher Harding & C.L. Lim, 'The significance of Westphalia: An archaeology of the international legal order', in Christopher Harding (ed.), Renegotiating Westphalia (The Hague e.a., 1999) p. 1-23.
63. Or at least later this date was chosen as the milestone, even if at that time the doctrine was still counterfactual, see Stéphane Beaulac, The Power of Language in the Making of International Law (Leiden e.a., 2004) p. 71-101.
64. On the basis of Michael Keating, 'Sovereignty and Plurinational Democracy', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 194
65. and David Held, Democracy and Global Order (Stanford, Calif., 1995) p. 78.
66. Emmerich de Vattel, Le droit des gens (Londres, 1758), (Washington, 1916) p. 7 states a nation is sovereign 'qui se gouverne elle-même sous quelque forme que ce soit sans dépendance d'aucune étranger' (that governs itself in whatever form but independently from anything foreign).
67. The self-subjection theory of Georg Jellinek, that says a state has international legal obligations only by subjecting itself to these, was founded on these presuppositions, Georg Jellinek, Die rechtliche Natur der Staatenverträge (Wien, 1880).
68. Alf Ross shows how paradoxical this theory was: 'One either has to take seriously that the state is only limited by its own will; but in that case there will be no real limits, no real international law. Or one will have completely to embrace the restrictions of international law. However, in that case the state will be bound by things beyond its own free will, and will in that case not be "absolutely sovereign", see Alf Ross, International Law. An Introduction (København, 1984), p. 44 (in Danish),
69. cited by Marlene Wind, Sovereignty and European Integration. Towards a Post-Hobbesian Order (Basingstoke e.a., 2001) p. 9. Also the obvious problem why new states are obliged by old international customary law (and by jus cogens) was never solved.
70. Emmerich de Vattel, Le droit des gens (Londres, 1758), (Washington, 1916) p. 7: 'A dwarf is as much a man as a giant; a small Republic is no less a sovereign state than the most powerful kingdom.'
71. The formulation is perceived as a sign of individualist philosophy at the inter-state level by Wilhelm G. Grewe, The Epochs of International Law (Berlin & New York, 1984) p. 415.
72. Until the Briand-Kellogg Pact (1928), which later also became customary international law, abolished the ius ad hellum in international law.
73. For a similar 'listing approach' in contemporaneous literature see Antonio Cassese, International Law (Oxford e.a., 2001) p. 89-90.
74. Bardo Fassbender, 'Sovereignty and Constitutionalism in International Law', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 132.
75. Ibid., p. 128.
76. The dominant view is that sovereign equality is not jus cogens, so every state can deviate from it by international treaty, see ibid., p. 137.
77. Charles W. Kegley & Gregory A. Raymond, Exorcising the Ghost of Westphalia - Building World Order in the New Millennium (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2002) p. 154-175;
78. Maryann K. Cusimano (ed.), Beyond Sovereignty. Issues for a Global Agenda (Boston e.a., 2000).
79. For a detailed analysis, see Cornelis Theunis van der Lugt, State Sovereignty or Ecological Sovereignty? (Baden-Baden, 2000).
80. David A. Smith, Dorothy J. Solinger & Steven C. Topik (eds.), States and Sovereignty in the Global Economy (London e.a., 1999).
81. Stephan Hobe, Der offene Verfassungsstaat zwischen Souveränität und Interdependenz (Berlin, 1998) p. 380-443.
82. Cf. Paul Williams, 'Fighting For Freetown: British Military Intervention in Sierra Leone', in Colin McInnes & Nicholas J. Wheeler (eds.), Dimensions of Western Military Intervention (London e.a., 2002) p. 140-168;
83. Robert H. Jackson, 'International Community beyond the Cold War', in Gene M. Lyons & Michael Mastanduno (eds.), Beyond Westphalia? (Baltimore, Md., e.a. 1995) p. 59-83;
84. Mariano Aguirre & José Antonio Sanahuja, 'Haiti: Demokratie dutch Einmischung?', in Tobias Debie & Franz Nuscheler (eds.), Der neue Interventionismus (Bonn, 1996) p. 155-184.
85. An overview of the theoretical problems is given by Luis E. Lugo (ed.), Sovereignty at the Crossroards? Morality and International Politics in the Post-Cold War Era (Lanham, 1996).
86. Cf. Jeremy A. Rabkin, The Case for Sovereignty (Washington, 2004) p. 110-111, 121.
87. ECJ 15 June 1964, Case 6/64, Costa v. ENEL (1964) ECR 585 Para 3.
88. Cf. Hans Peter Ipsen, Europäisches Gemeinschaftsrecht (Tübingen, 1972) p. 58-62 on the Gesamtakt (common act) of the member states creating a new legal order, not just pooling their competences.
89. Gráinne de Búrca, 'Sovereignty and the Supremacy Doctrine of the European Court of Justice', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 449-460.
90. ECJ 5 Feb. 1963, Case 26/62, Van Gend en Loos v. Administratie der Belastingen (1963) ECR 1 para 3.
91. Paul Craig & Graínne de Búrca, EU Law, 3rd edn. (Oxford e.a., 2003) p. 301-312.
92. Kenneth A. Armstrong, 'United Kingdom - Divided on Sovereignty', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 327-350.
93. Continuing Dicey's and Austin's tradition today Jeffrey Goldsworthy, Parliamentary Sovereignty (Oxford, 1999) p. 15.
94. Embedding it into a rather Schmittian conceptual framework, Martin Loughlin, The Idea of Public Law (Oxford e.a., 2004) p. 33-37, 87, 95.
95. Sir Stephen Sedley, 'Human Rights: A Twenty First Century Agenda', Public Law (1995) p. 386.
96. Paul Craig, 'Britain in the EU', in J. Jowell & D. Oliver (eds.), The Changing Constitution, 4th edn. (Oxford, 2000) p. 79.
97. Cf. Olivier Beaud, La puissance de l'Etat (Paris, 1994) p. 457-491;
98. Ziller, supra n. 13, p. 261-277.
99. In Maastricht I, decision 92-308 DC of 9 April 1992, the Council had been asked by the President of the Republic whether the Maastricht Treaty could be ratified without prior amendment of the Constitution (cf. Art. 3 on sovereignty). The answer was no, so Art. 88 was amended for Maastricht ('transfer of necessary competences'). See Florence Chaltiel, La souveraineté de l'Etat et l'Union européenne, l'exemple français (Paris, 1999) p. 164-166 and 176-179.
100. In Maastricht II, decision 92-312 DC of 2 Sept. 1992, the Council was asked by members of Parliament if the Maastricht Treaty was compatible with the Constitution as it had been revised in the meantime. This time the Council declared the Treaty in conformity with the Constitution.
101. Paradoxically, due to the wording of Art. 3 of the Constitution, the Council had to quote this power of referendum as the direct expression of national sovereignty, whereas it is de facto clearly a triumph for popular sovereignty. See Ziller, supra n. 13, p. 273.
102. Thus, also the supremacy of EC law over French constitutional law can be based only on the French Constitution itself, see Jan Herman Reestman, 'Conseil Constitutionnel on the Status of (Secondary) Community Law in the French Internal Order. Decision of 10 June 2004, 2004-496 DC', 1 EuConst (2005) p. 316-317.
103. To realize a unified Europe, Germany participates in the development of the European Union, which is bound to democratic, social, and federal principles and the rule of law as well as the principle of subsidiarity and provides a protection of human rights essentially equivalent to that of this Constitution [Grundgesetz]. The Federation can, for this purpose and with consent of the Senate i Bundesrat], delegate sovereign powers....'
104. Theo Öhlinger, Verfassungsrecht 3rd edn. (Wien, 1997) p. 89.
105. Art. 2/A.(1): 'By virtue of treaty, the Republic of Hungary, in its capacity as a Member State of the European Union, may exercise certain constitutional powers jointly with other Member States to the extent necessary in connection with the rights and obligations conferred by the treaties on the foundation of the European Union and the European Communities (hereinafter referred to as "European Union"); these powers may be exercised independently and by way of the institutions of the European Union.'
106. László Kecskés, 'Indító tézisek a Magyar Köztársaság Alkotmánya EU-vonatkozású szabályainak továbbfejlesztéséhez' (Starting Points for a Future Amendment of the Provisions of the Hungarian Constitution on EU Matters), Európai Jog (European Law) (2004) p. 6.
107. E.g., in the Polish literature Cezary Mik, 'Sovereignty and European Integration in Poland', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 398, as sovereignty is not mentioned in the text of the empowerment clause of Art. 90 Polish Constitution. It is worth mentioning that this Article is generally about conferring competences on international organizations. A special Europe-clause does not exist in Poland.
108. Anneli Albi, 'Postmodern versus Retrospective Sovereignty: Two Different Discourses in the EU and the Candidate Countries', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 401-421 with further references.
109. Anneli Albi, EU Enlargement and the Constitutions of Central and Eastern Europe (Cambridge, 2005) p. 122-130.
110. Ibid., p. 130-138.
111. For a critique of the sovereigntist case-law of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, see András Sajó, 'Learning Co-Operative Constitutionalism the Hard Way: The Hungarian Constitutional Court Shying Away from EU Supremacy', Zeitschrift für Staats- und Europarechtswissenschaften (2004) p. 354-371.
112. Cf. Albi, supra n. 77, p. 18-36.
113. Hans Lindahl, 'Sovereignty and Representation in the European Union', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 87.
114. Cf. Neil Walker, 'Late Sovereignty in the European Union', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 6-8 on descriptive fallacy (redundancy and incoherence), and the criticism of Kelsen (see above at Austria).
115. Jacques Maritain, Man and the State (Chicago, 1951) p. 51-53 argues that sovereignty means absolutism, and accountability contradicts sovereignty, so we have to give up the concept on moral grounds.
116. For a similar moral conclusion, see Bertrand de Jouvenel, Souveraineté. Á la recherche du bien politique (Paris, 1955) p. 235, 251-252, 266-268, 360-371, who thinks sovereignty means power that is above the rules.
117. For an attack in the name of individualism, see Harold J. Laski, Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty (New Haven, 1917) p. 5, 273.
118. Horst Dreier, 'Souveränität', in Görres-Staatslexikon, Vol. 4., 7th edn. (Freiburg e.a., 1988 , p. 1207-1208 talks (on the trail of Harold Laski, Ernst Forsthoff and Werner Weber) about loss of internal state competences because of polyarchy, party statehood (i.e., when the actual state power lies with different political parties) and the rule of corporations, which is similar to the feudalism (i.e. the time before sovereignty and before modern statehood).
119. With references to James Madison and Alexis de Tocqueville, see Jeffrey Goldsworthy, 'The Debate About Sovereignty in the United States', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 440-441.
120. For a similar solution in the EU, see Utz Schliesky, Souveränität und Legitimität von Herrschaftsgewalt. Die Weiterentwicklung von Begriffen der Staatslehre und des Staatsrechts im europäischen Mehrebenensystem (Tübingen, 2004) p. 541-542 and 545-546 who proposes the concept 'common sovereignty' (gemeinsame Souveränität) of EU and member states (instead of 'shared sovereignty') in order to preserve the indivisible character of sovereignty.
121. Goldsworthy, supra n. 84, p. 424.
122. For a similar view in French literature (i.e., member state sovereignty has transformed, and some kind of European sovereignty has emerged), see Florence Chaltiel, La souveraineté de l'Etat et l'Union européenne, l'exemple français (Paris, 1999) p. 380-385
123. and Ziller, supra n. 13, p. 277.
124. According to Chaltiel, this European sovereignty is however not autonomous, but rather a 'souveraineté collective' of the member states and a polyarchy (defined as a political system characterised by a plurality of decision centres) in the sense of Robert Dahl, see ibid., p. 467-469.
125. David Livingstone, 'The Secession Tradition in America' in David Gordon (ed.), Secession, State and Liberty (New Brunswick, 1998) p. 22-23.
126. On the fact that sovereignty matters were not thought through thoroughly by the Founding Fathers, see Jack N. Rakove, 'American Federalism: Was There an Original Understanding?, in Mark R. Killenbeck (ed.), The Tenth Amendment and State Sovereignty (Lunham MD, 2002) p. 107-129.
127. John C. Hurd, The Theory of our National Existence (Boston, 1881) p. 140, 374;
128. Albert Venn Dicey, Lectures Introductory to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 2nd edn. (London, 1886) p. 135
129. and Lester Bernhard Orfield, The Amending of the Federal Constitution (Ann Arbor e.a., 1942) p. 153-155.
130. This idea is actually identical to the background theory of the Hungarian Europe-clause, see supra n. 73.
131. Ingolf Pernice, 'Die Europäische Verfassung', Walter Hallstein-Institut Papers 12/01 (2001) p. 5.
132. This idea could be backed by the use of mixed agreements concluded jointly by EC and member states, see a positive law base for it by Art. 133(6), second indent, EC Treaty.
133. Samantha Besson, 'Sovereignty in Conflict', European Integration online Papers (EIoP), Vol. 8 (2004) No15 p. 18.
134. Similar solutions are known in public international law, e.g., by Art. IV of the Antarctic Treaty on the 'freezing' of sovereignty questions and on concentrating rather on concrete problems.
135. Joseph H.H. Weiler, 'The Reformation of European Constitutionalism', Journal of Common Market Studies (1997) p. 125 talks about 'cold war with its paradoxical guarantee of co-existence following the infamous MAD logic: Mutual Assured Destruction.' And he continues: 'For [a national constitutional court] ... to declare a Community norm unconstitutional, rather than simply threaten to do so, would be an extremely hazardous move so as to make its usage unlikely.' Such a declaration of unconstitutionality would include always (at least implied) references to national sovereignty.
136. Josef Isensee,'Vorrang des Europarechts und deutsche Verfassungsvorbehalte - offener Dissens', in Festschrift Klaus Stern (MÜchen, 1997) p. 1239-1268.
137. For a similar suggestion in German literature, see Anne Peters, Elemente einer Theorie der Verfassung Europas (Berlin, 2001) p. 148.
138. Neil MacCormick, Questioning Sovereignty (Oxford, 1999) p. 126.
139. Similar suggestions with less radicalism by Arnaud Haquet, Le concept de souveraineté en droit constitutionnel français (Paris, 2004) p. 295-296.
140. On the discussion of the problem, see Karl Doehring, 'Einseitiger Austritt aus der Europäischen Gemeinschaft' in Festschrift Schiedermair (Heidelberg, 2001) p. 695-704.
141. From the very newest member state's sovereigntist case-law, see the Judgment of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of 11 May 2005, K 18/ 04, on Poland's Membership in the European Union (Accession Treaty);
142. and the Judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court of 18 July 2005, 2 BvR 2236/04, on the European Arrest Warrant Act.
143. Neil Walker, supra n. 81, p. 3-32.
144. This conception also allows parallel claims (characteristic to our era of 'late sovereignty') without being forced immediately to decide between them. This new parallelism of claims also means we are facing from a political science perspective an era of post-sovereignty. If traditional sovereignty can be characterised by a homogenous demos, state-centrism, centralism, verticality, representation, command and monism, then post-sovereignty is distinguished by consensus on rights, multilevel solutions, decentralisation, horizontality, participation, deliberation, pluralism, directly deliberative polyarchy, see Richard Bellamy, 'Sovereignty, Post-Sovereignty and Pre-Sovereignty', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 189
145. and Lindahl, supra n. 80, p. 90-92.
146. Miguel Poiares Maduro, 'Contrapunctual Law: Europe's Constitutional Pluralism in Action', in Neil Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (Oxford, 2003) p. 501-537.