The Development of Constitutions

Kaarlo Heikki Tuori, University of Helsinki Faculty of Law, Centre of Excellence in Foundations of European Law and Polity, has published The Economic Constitution Among European Constitutions as Helsinki Legal Studies Research Paper No. 6. Here is the abstract.

The paper starts from the (hypo)thesis, that European constitutionalism should be examined as a diversified process where each stage receives its particular colouring from a particular constitution (or constitutional dimension). Reflecting the temporal and functional primacy of economic integration, the first wave proceeded under the auspices of economic constitution; in the second phase, the emphasis shifted to juridical constitution; during the third wave, the focus was transferred to political constitution; and finally, in our contemporary age, since, say, the Treaty of Amsterdam the pacemaker role appears to have been taken over by security constitution. Such a temporal succession should not be interpreted in the sense of an emerging constitutional aspect replacing or supplanting the previous one; rather, the constitutional dimensions complement each other. Thus, the latent and manifest development of economic constitution has not stopped, and the economic constitution retained its functional primacy. Constructing a common (internal) market has been the motor of the whole integration process and, correspondingly, the non-economic constitutional dimensions have largely developed as a response to demands raised or consequences set off by the economic one. Here we can talk of relations of implication. Finally, relations between aspects of constitution can also be of a conflictual nature. Thus, the normative implications of economic constitution may clash with those of, say, political or social constitution. Before the European Court of Justice, such conflicts often assume the guise of contests between different types of rights: between, on the one hand, rights related to market freedoms and, on the other hand, civil and political or social rights.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.