Competition Law and the Enforcement of Article 102. By Federico Etro and Ioannis Kokkoris
| Author | John Townsend |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2011.00865-5.x |
| Date | 01 July 2011 |
| Published date | 01 July 2011 |
To take one example, let us focus on constitutional £exibility. In setting the
‘rules of the game’, the constitution must be su⁄ciently stable in order to allow
participants to anticipate the consequences of theiractions, yet su⁄ciently £exible
to allow future generations to respond to political and social developments.The
constitution’s amendment procedure is one method of reconciling the clash
between stability and progress, which Benjamin Cardozo called the great‘antin-
omies’ of the law.
The authors extensively analyse India’s constitution (151^157), noting that
India’s amendment procedure (which is relatively easy) appears to be ‘just right’
on their amendment £exibility scale (141). Nonetheless it was the judiciary,
not the amendment procedure, which saved India from a dictatorship. An overly
£exible amendment process together with short-term political interests and the
danger of quali¢ed majorities give rise to potential abuses of the constitutional
amendment power.The Indian‘basic structure’doctrine that restricts the constitu-
tional amendment power from altering the basic features of the constitution,
which is mentioned in the book, was created by the judiciary in response to the
Parliament’sabuse of the constitutionalamendment power,and proved that a lim-
ited amendment power may preserve democracy. One can only imagine what
would have been the Indian constitution’s destiny if the basic structure doctrine
had not been created.
On the whole, this book is surely one of the most attention-grabbing studies
published in the area of constitutional law in recent times. No other project
examines constitutional durability to this extent.The authors’ quantitative meth-
odology, despite its weaknesses, clearly supports their theories. Not only do the
authors pose important and interesting questions, their ¢ndings are fascinating.
Most importantly,the issue of a constitution’sendurance is not merely ofacademic
interest. It has practical signi¢cance, and this book could be in£uential in states
involved in constitution-making.The text is also well written and veryaccessible,
containing usefulfootnotes, references and appendices with the empirical analysis
data.
This book woulden hancethe l ibraryof anyone interested in comparativeconsti -
tutional law, institutionaldesign and political science. Prospectively, this compre-
hensive research project, with its remarkable collection of constitutions, creates
greatopportunities for further research and itwill be thrilli ngto see other studies
emanating from it.
Ya n i v R o z n a i
n
Federico Etro and Ioannis Kokkoris, Competition Law and the Enforcement of
Article 102
,Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, 224 pp, hb d95.00.
Article102 of theTreaty onthe Functioning of the EU (formerlyArticle 82 of the
EC Treaty) prohibits the abusive exploitationof a dominant market position in a
n
Law Department,London School of Economicsand Political Science.
Reviews
651
r2011The Authors.The Modern Law Review r2011The Modern Law Review Limited.
(2011)74(4) 631^660
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