Constitutional Engagement in a Transnational Era

Constitutional law in the United States and around the world now operates within an increasingly transnational legal environment of international treaties, customary international law, multilateral and bilateral agreements, a supranational infrastructure of trade law and human rights law, and increased comparative judicial awareness, reflected in increasing cross-national references in constitutional court decisions around the world. The constellation of legal orders in which established constitutional regimes operate has thus changed - there are more bodies generating law, there are more international agreements, there are more multi-national interactions and transactions that bring into view various legal orders. How, if at all, do these multiple transnational phenomena (including national law that has influence beyond its borders, as well as an expanded array of international law) affect our understanding of the role of constitutions and of courts in deciding constitutional cases? This book explores the role of constitutions and constitutional law in this changing legal environment, analyzing complex currents of convergence, resistance and engagement with the transnational in the United States, Australia, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, India, South Africa and elsewhere.

Vicki C. Jackson is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where she teaches courses in constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, federal courts, the Supreme Court, and on gender-related subjects. She previously served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice (2000-01); as a member of the D.C. Bar Board of Governors (1999-2002); as a co-chair of the Special Committee on Gender of the D.C. Circuit Task Force on Gender, Race and Ethnic Bias (1992-95), and a member of the D.C. Circuit Advisory Committee on Procedures (1992-98). Professor Jackson is co-author with Professor Mark Tushnet of a Comparative Constitutional Law course book, and currently serves on the Board of Advisors for I.Con, the International Journal of Constitutional Law. Her articles on federalism, sovereign immunity and the 11th Amendment, and gender equality have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Georgetown Law Review, and other scholarly journals. Her research interests include comparative constitutional law, comparative federalism, and freedom of expression.