Research Group on Multilevel Constitutionalism

 

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in multilevel constitutionalism in academic scholarship, addressing the internationalization of constitutional law. The different theoretical approaches explaining this phenomenon share the idea that certain fields of competencies traditionally belonging to the core functions of the nation state - such as the definition of constitutional standards - should be transferred to some higher - international or supranational - level.

The objective of the research group is to map the process of internationalization of constitutional law in different fields, to discover factors that influence the migration of human rights concepts and constitutional institutional solutions. The research group will look for tendencies fostering and countering such migration, and ways to resolve possible conflicts between different levels of constitutional or human rights protection, in other words: reasons, motives and limitations of the internationalization of constitutional ideas.

The primary goal is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the topic with respect to the Central and Eastern European (CEE) regional context by mapping the field of multilevel constitutionalism, analyzing how multilevel constitutionalism works – and where it does not work and why. The group’s aim is to review constitutional changes and constitutional discourses in the region and to provide a critical assessment from this theoretical perspective.

The research group focuses on the meaning of multilevel constitutionalism through the example of the Central and Eastern European constitutions and the changing constitutional identity of these countries. The impact of multilevel constitutionalism generally remains limited in the area of the constitutional identity of the political community. National governments, seeking to defend their own concept of constitutional identity, can challenge international standards by pointing out the divergent solutions from other countries. Similar concerns can be raised with regard to other ideological references (e.g. freedom of religion, the concept of the family, sexual minorities). The research investigates the relationship between constitutional identity and human rights protection.

The main research areas are the following:

  • Internationalization of Constitutional Law
  • Connection Between Constitutional Identity and International Human Rights Protection
  • Different Constructions of Constitutional Identity in CEE
  • The Use of the Concept of Nation in CEE Constitutions
  • The Impacts of the Use of Nation in CEE Constitutions on Human Rights Protection
  • Constitutional Identity and Minorities

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Head of the Research Group

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Members

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