Anderson Gavin W.. Constitutional Rights after Globalization. Hart Publishing,2005. — 155 p.. 2005

Constitutional Rights after Globalisation juxtaposes the globalization of the economy and the worldwide spread of constitutional charters of rights. The shift of political authority to powerful economic actors entailed by neoliberal globalization challenges the traditional state-centered focus of constitutional law. Contemporary debate has responded to this challenge in normative terms, whether by reinterpreting rights or redirecting their ends, e.g. to reach private actors. However, globalization undermines the liberal legalist epistemology on which these approaches rest, by positing the existence of multiple sites of legal production, (e.g. multinational corporations) beyond the state. This dynamic, between globalization and legal pluralism on one side, and rights constitutionalism on the other, provides the context for addressing the question of rights constitutionalism’s counterhegemonic potential. The competing liberal and ‘new’ politics of definition (the latter highlighting how neoliberal values and institutions constrain political action) are contrasted to show how each advances different agenda. A comparative survey of constitutionalism’s engagement with private power shows that conceiving of constitutions in the predominant liberal, legalist mode has broadly favored hegemonic interests.

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Acknowledgements

Table of Cases

Constitutionalism in an Age of Globalization

Ours is a time of globalization. Debates about what globalization is (or is not), its causes, effects, and future trajectory, have achieved a prominent, if not pre-eminent, position in the social sciences.[1]

RIGHTS CONSTITUTIONALISM AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF LIBERAL LEGALISM

GLOBALIZATION AND THE EMPIRICAL CHALLENGE OF PRIVATE POLITICAL POWER

GLOBALIZATION AND THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL CHALLENGE OF LEGAL PLURALISM

A NEW DYNAMIC: RIGHTS CONSTITUTIONALISM, GLOBALIZATION AND LEGAL PLURALISM

Globalization and the Reconfiguration of Political Power

Globalization presents two fundamental challenges to rights constitutionalism.