New Wine, Old Wineskins: On the Geographical Assumptions of International Constitutional Law

Abstract

One of the central claims in the international constitutionalism literature posits that, through the process of constitutionalization, the nation State can be overcome. Drawing on John Agnew, this article shows that the international constitutionalism literature is caught in a “territorial trap.” It argues that our conception of constitutionalism is profoundly shaped by the territorial logic of the State, and, as a result, that the linkage between constitutionalism and the State is deeper and more complex than previously acknowledged. By leaving the underlying territorial assumptions of constitutional law unproblematized, international constitutionalism, as it stands today, reinforces and re-enacts the State rather than overcoming it.