First hypothesis: Global Societal Constitutionalism
The constitutionalization of the world society is not exclusively being realised in the international organisations characterising the realm of international politics, nor does it take place through the emergence of a single overarching global constitution. Rather it emerges incrementally in the constitutionalization of a multiplicity of autonomously operating global regimes.
Second hypothesis: Regime Specific Standards of Basic Rights
The question of the “horizontal” impact of basic rights in the trans-national space, that is the question whether basic rights also implies direct obligations for private actors and not just for state-actors, is even more crucial in the trans-national space than it ever was in the national context. The trans-national space is characterised by the absence of omnipresent nation-state actions and law. Consequently, the traditional legal constructs of state action and the structural implications of state based basic rights are only having a limited impact in the global space, at the same time as private trans-national actors, in particular multi-national firms, regulate wide areas of human life, thereby making it crucial to confront the question concerning the validity of basic rights in private trans-national orders.
Leading Research Questions: External or Internal Constitutionalisation?
The two hypothesis concerning regime specific constitutions and regime specific forms of basic rights will be tested in relation to different global regimes. In doing this a central area of interest is to what degree it is possible to observe global constitutional pluralism. To what extent are global regimes relying on self-organisation and to what extent are constitutional norms being imposed by external actors? Or is it rather possible to observe complex interactions between internal self-organisation and external constitutional requirements? That leads to the question to what extent it is useful to develop a concept of a fragmented “political” constitution or whether it only is possible to expect a multitude of particularistic constitutions, which only refer to the normativity and rationality of partial and highly autonomous sectors of the world society. In case of the latter the integration of the constitutional multitude is then likely to be the main problem for the constitutionalisation of world society.
