The Development and Contribution of the Case-law of the Inter-American of Court of Human Rights

It is with particular satisfaction that I accede to the invitation to write this Preface to Dr. Gu Shengkai's book "International Human Rights Law: Inter-American Theory and Practice". I first met Dr. Gu Shengkai at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, on 09 December 2002, when I there delivered a public lecture, at the Human Rights Law Centre of its School of Law, on "Recent Developments in the Case-Law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights". Ever since his successful completion at that University, Dr. Gu Shengkai pursued patiently his line of research on the subject-matter of his present book. The outcome of his research, his present book, gives testimony of all his endeavours in examining the subject in a proper perspective.     

Policy competition in the 2002 French legislative and presidential elections

Abstract.  The French two-round system of presidential elections forces candidates to choose strategies designed to maximize their votes in two different, potentially conflicting strategic contexts: a first round contest between many candidates, and a second round between (typically) a left- and a right-oriented candidate. Following a constitutional change in 2000, furthermore, presidential elections are synchronized with legislative elections, more tightly linking presidential candidates to the policy platforms of the parties they represent. This article examines the consequences of policy positioning by presidential candidates, measuring, comparing and assessing positioning in the legislative elections and in the first and second presidential election rounds. The measures come from an expert survey taken in 2002, from content analysis of party manifestos and presidential speeches, and from the 2002 French National Election Survey. The findings provide hard empirical confirmation of two commonly perceived propositions: first, that Jospin's first-round loss resulted from strategic error in moving too close to the policy centre, and second, that Chirac's won an overwhelming second-round victory because he collected all of the voters from candidates eliminated in the first round.     

Political constitutionalism in Europe revisited

This article traces the disconnect in the constitutional study of the European Union from the Maastricht era to the euro crisis. In the Maastricht era, a discourse of ‘post-sovereignty’ came to dominate theoretical enquiry, reflecting but also distorting a number of material developments: the ‘end of history’, the retreat of critical theory into discourse analysis and systems theory, and the prioritization of law over politics. Jürgen Habermas was a key intellectual figure in driving this ideological mix at the very moment when anti-systemic challenges began to return, both formally and informally, as exemplified in the German Constitutional Court and the French political scene. In revisiting the idea of political constitutionalism, we can foreground this constitutional disconnect and show how it contributes to the irresolution of the subsequent euro crisis conjuncture.