Questioning Sovereignty (Paperback)

Neil MacCormick

ISBN 10: 0199253307 / ISBN 13: 9780199253302

Editore: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002

Riguardo questo articolo

Paperback. In this timely book Neil MacCormick examines the transformation of sovereignty in the United Kingdom and the European Union, the transition from 'sovereign states' to 'post-sovereign states', devolution and nationalism and the future of the British union. It applies the institutional theory of law to a general inquiry into the relations of law and state, and to the question of the character of a Rechtsstaat or state under the rule of law. This clears the groundfor a historical/analytical review of the United Kingdom as union state, and of the Benthamite or Diceyan view of its constitution, grounded in the idea of sovereignty. Can that sovereignty survivediffusion of power within the British state? Or can it survive the development of the European Union and the supremacy in it of European Community law? Was there a revolution in 1972, when Parliament enacted the European Communities Act, or later, when the House of Lords held that subsequent Acts of Parliament should be 'disapplied' when they conflict with Community law? The potential for conflict between member state constitutions and European legal order is noless in other member states - Germany, France, Ireland and the others. Indeed the issue is perhaps whether in the long run constitutional conflicts are inevitable. This leads on into a considerationof pluralistic as against monistic accounts of legal order viewed as a whole, and finally to a review of the concept of sovereignty, and of the possibility that there really could be a new order of post-sovereign states within a non-sovereign confederalunion in Europe. If so, what becomes of democracy, and how can the democratic deficit in Europe be redeemed? The existing constitution of the 'European Commonwealth' is reviewed critically as an example ofa mixed constitution and an argument is proposed about the value or values attaching to democracy and to subsidiarity in this vast commonwealth. Connected to subsidiarity is the issue of contemporarypolitics of identity all over Europe and beyond. MacCormick puts forward a carefully argued case for a moderate and liberal form of nationalism that sets universal but non-absolute principles of self-determination. The case is finally pressed home in relation to the relations of Scotland to the other countries of the British Isles, and an argument put for the idea of mutual independence within a Council of the Isles and the European Union. This is a work of applied legal theory, addressing urgent contemporary questions about law and the State, about the character of the UK as a state, and about the juridical character of the European Union in its relationship with the member states of the Union. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Codice articolo 9780199253302

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Questioning Sovereignty (Paperback)
• Editore: Oxford University Press, Oxford
• Data di pubblicazione: 2002
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0199253307
• ISBN 13: 9780199253302
• Rilegatura: Paperback
• Condizione: new

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

This is a book about the transformation of sovereignty in the United Kingdom and the European Union, about the transition from 'sovereign states' to 'post-sovereign states' about devolution and nationalism and the future of the British union.

Informazioni sull?autore

The late Neil MacCormick was Regius Professor of Public Law at the University of Edinburgh and a Member of the European Parliament.