S1016 Sovereignty in Supra-National Polities
Aims
At the end of this course the student is able
a. to identify and clarify some important basic problems of supra-national legal orders like the EU
b. to describe some fundamental theories of sovereignty and analyse contemporary debates in terms of these theories
c. to clarify the relationship between sovereignty and the rule of law, in particularly with regard to democracy and human rights
d. to bring these insights to bear on the discussions on new institutional designs for supra-national legal orders
Contents
The era of globalisation has it that the state is \'withering away\', though not for reasons Karl Marx once strongly defended. States are in the process of gradually converging into supra-national polities (WTO, MERCOSUR, ASEAN, COMESA, EU). But they are also falling apart into regional polities, with or without formal devolution of state power. Some authors claim, prematurely perhaps, that this will lead to a sovereign global polity, others that we are witnessing the emergence of \'law without a state\', i.e. without sovereignty. Neither of these groups is unanimous in applauding or abhorring these alleged developments. Very few, however, ask the questions that this course asks: What is sovereignty? What has it been? What has it become? What could it become under present and future conditions? What should it become? What would happen to it in that \'world without end\' that seems to transgress the whole idea \'territory\': the virtual world of games like Second Life? The course starts out from two contemporary arguments against sovereignty (the Argument from Redundancy and the Argument from Incoherence). The second and main part rehearses important landmarks in the history of the idea of sovereignty (Bodin, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, etc.), and analyses the contemporary debate on popular sovereignty (as an \'ideology\' of democracy) in particular. The third part argues that sovereignty in democracy should be seen as the vanishing point of a legal order and proposes some institutional arrangements that may follow from that in a supra-national context.
Examination
Students are expected to present a portfolio of individually gathered materials, notes, writings, pictures, reports, bibliography, etc, and with a final 4000 words (max.) paper on a recently published target paper. Towards the end of the course there will be a conference of poster presentations by the students of their draft papers, with feed back from fellow students and teacher(s). After the conference papers are finalised and orally defended during the examination week.
Media
The course (structure, materials, assignments, library, discussion groups, etc) is available in the virtual environment of VIU. Course notes are available in the form of a pre-final draft for a book. Most reading materials are freely accessible through the Internet (see below). Others will be provided in photocopy.
Required previous education
No specific academic training in law or philosophy is required. One is supposed to know about the general structure and principles of a legal system under the rule of law.
At the end of this course the student is able
a. to identify and clarify some important basic problems of supra-national legal orders like the EU
b. to describe some fundamental theories of sovereignty and analyse contemporary debates in terms of these theories
c. to clarify the relationship between sovereignty and the rule of law, in particularly with regard to democracy and human rights
d. to bring these insights to bear on the discussions on new institutional designs for supra-national legal orders
Contents
The era of globalisation has it that the state is \'withering away\', though not for reasons Karl Marx once strongly defended. States are in the process of gradually converging into supra-national polities (WTO, MERCOSUR, ASEAN, COMESA, EU). But they are also falling apart into regional polities, with or without formal devolution of state power. Some authors claim, prematurely perhaps, that this will lead to a sovereign global polity, others that we are witnessing the emergence of \'law without a state\', i.e. without sovereignty. Neither of these groups is unanimous in applauding or abhorring these alleged developments. Very few, however, ask the questions that this course asks: What is sovereignty? What has it been? What has it become? What could it become under present and future conditions? What should it become? What would happen to it in that \'world without end\' that seems to transgress the whole idea \'territory\': the virtual world of games like Second Life? The course starts out from two contemporary arguments against sovereignty (the Argument from Redundancy and the Argument from Incoherence). The second and main part rehearses important landmarks in the history of the idea of sovereignty (Bodin, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, etc.), and analyses the contemporary debate on popular sovereignty (as an \'ideology\' of democracy) in particular. The third part argues that sovereignty in democracy should be seen as the vanishing point of a legal order and proposes some institutional arrangements that may follow from that in a supra-national context.
Examination
Students are expected to present a portfolio of individually gathered materials, notes, writings, pictures, reports, bibliography, etc, and with a final 4000 words (max.) paper on a recently published target paper. Towards the end of the course there will be a conference of poster presentations by the students of their draft papers, with feed back from fellow students and teacher(s). After the conference papers are finalised and orally defended during the examination week.
Media
The course (structure, materials, assignments, library, discussion groups, etc) is available in the virtual environment of VIU. Course notes are available in the form of a pre-final draft for a book. Most reading materials are freely accessible through the Internet (see below). Others will be provided in photocopy.
Required previous education
No specific academic training in law or philosophy is required. One is supposed to know about the general structure and principles of a legal system under the rule of law.
Syllabus
Readings
Readings