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3 NoFo 1 (2007)

handle is hein.journals/nfdnsaisy3 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITORIAL The current scholarship in European law, international law and legal theory seems to be obsessed with exploring the power of constitutionalism. In the globalised, fragmented world with a multiplicity of actors, international legal regulation has developed through strongly independent regimes such as EU law, WTO law, environmental law, human rights, and space law, within the framework of general international law. Each regime has developed strong specialised substantive law while the procedural norms and the structures of the regimes are less developed. While the global legal regulation has become more fragmented and specialised through the diversification of norm-creating powers, there is concurrent pressure to unify and consolidate these normative orders. Constitutionalismhas become one of the suggested means to consolidate the regimes and their inter-regime relations. In the EU, the hope posited in constitutionalism has lately manifested itself in the creation of the Constitutional Treaty (formally, the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe).1 Regardless of the efforts invested in this project, it is not going to enter into force as a whole. Most likely, it is going to lead to a piecemeal amendment of the founding treaties, while a part or parts of the Constitutional Treaty will enter into force in the near future - although under a less provocative title. In the international law sphere there is an extensive debate on the UN Charter as a world constitution. Although it is widely recognised that the United Nations Charter enjoys a particular character due to the fundamental nature of some of its norms, principles, and purposes as well as its universal acceptance by the international community of States,2 its potential role as a constitution remains disputed. Nevertheless, whether it is EU law, WTO law, or the UN law, the coherence and unity of their internal structures as well as the inter-regime relations are presently under academic scrutiny. We academics are all wrapped up in our respective constitutionalism debates struggling with seemingly similar problems, yet the debates are detached. We should not presume that there is only one single debate on constitutionalism, on the contrary, OJ C 310, 16 December 2004. 2 Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, UN Doc. A/CN.4/L.702, 18 July 2006, 22 para. 36.

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