CURRENT LEGAL PROBLEMS 2008, vol 61. Ed by Colm O'Cinneide and Jane Holder Oxford: Oxford University Press (www.oup.com), 2009. xxv + 423 pp. ISBN 9780199545513. £89.95.
| Pages | 157-160 |
| DOI | 10.3366/E1364980909001103 |
| Published date | 01 January 2010 |
| Author | Cormac Mac Amhlaigh |
| Date | 01 January 2010 |
The 61st volume of
Questions of constitutional democracy and constitutional ideology animate Danny Nicol's rather intemperate critique of what he calls “Britain's [sic] Transnational Constitution”. Tracing the development and effects in the UK of the various post-state legal regimes which have sprung up in the post-war era, Nicol harbours a particular ire for three: the EU, Council of Europe and WTO. Not only are these causing the strangulation of democracy in the UK, but they are also, according to Nicol, imposing a neo-liberal straitjacket on what was apparently a halcyon era of Westminster parliamentary democracy. The problem with denouncing one's international obligations and lauding the superiority of one's domestic constitutional arrangements is that it is usually the preserve of corrupt dictators and wayward US presidents. While I am sure that Nicol falls into neither of these categories, he finds himself in rather strange company in his attack on the domestic impact of these transnational regimes. The evidence presented to support the charge of ideological imperialism is both selective and tendentious – a whole raft of EU social protection measures are studiously ignored in the pursuit of polemic, and the putative neo-liberal agenda of the ECHR seems to hinge entirely on the fact that the Convention contains a protocol protecting property rights. Nicol is on firmer ground with respect to the charge of democratic devaluation, and indeed the challenges of globalisation and the preservation of democracy are one of the most profound puzzles for political and constitutional theory in the twenty-first century. However, his parochial eulogisation of the Westminster Parliamentary system as paradigmatic of accountable democracy is, when viewed in the light of recent scandals, naive and, when likened to a Tullyesque ideal of agonistic democracy, fatuous.
A slightly more sanguine view of the effects of transnational regulation on the UK's constitutional system is offered by...
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