The survival of the national state in a globalized World

In the discussion of the future of national states there are two mistakes that must be avoided: the first is to consider nation states as institutions that are in decline or disappearing, or that they are losing all political or economic power as a consequence of the process of capitalist globalisation; and the second is to believe that the defence of a nation and of national sovereignty is the only, or the principle, line of defence against the catastrophes brought on by the globalise market. The national states continue to play a decisive role in political and economic fields and it is obvious that the national state has a role to play in the resistance to globalisation. However, the juridical literature constantly emphasized that the notion of the Rule of law has its own universal dimension, as it was expressly attested in many international and European documents. The existence of the rule of law essentially depends on the national realities, those which contributed to the definition and establishment of the rule of law as a basic concept of the existence of the modern state.