Legislatures

In democratic constitutional traditions, legislatures with members chosen by the citizens provide a primary connection between the citizenry holding ultimate sovereignty and those individuals actually exercising sovereign power within and outside the territory of the state. The elected members wield the legislative power but are subject to periodic evaluation and potential dismissal through regularly scheduled, competitive, and fair elections. Liberal constitutionalist traditions also emphasize the existence of certain limitations on legislative power, in the form of requirements to guarantee basic rights and uphold rule through law that also constrain how the elected members use their power. Hopes of developing a world constitutional government include organizing the global-level legislative power in similar fashion, realizing dreams of a ‘parliament of man’. Many advocates of global constitutionalism see the UN General Assembly as the kernel of a world legislature. Yet on a closer look, the General Assembly’s strong anchoring in the multilateralized Westphalian states system that emerged in the twentieth century reveals how far it is from realizing that goal. The individuals serving in it are accountable to national executives rather than the people, and it lacks true legislative power. Advocates of global constitutionalism have proposed many ways to redesign the UN General Assembly to make it a true global legislature. Yet implementing any of those proposals would require significant transformation of the current global political order. Since the political will to make that transition still does not exist, immediate efforts to advance global constitutionalism should focus on promoting constitutionalist principles of rule rather than constitutionalist institutional design.