We are living on the edge of epochs. Our societies are stretched between our heritage from the past and the demands of the future, which has so brutally and swiftly entered into our seemingly well established and carefully maintained constitutional and political orders. And now, having faced the demons from the past – especially the ones ravaging the Interwar period – which have been reborn as visions from the near future, we must admit that we are in a deep crisis. A crisis which is overwhelming and has a multitude of manifestations on institutional and normative levels, on the socio-political playground and in the mindset of the people forming their constitutional imagination. This is at once a crisis of constitutionalism, representative democracy, party democracy and liberaldemocratic constitutionalism. A crisis that challenges globalisation, open statehood, constitutionalisation of international and European law and internationalisation of constitutional law. Furthermore, we are facing severe criticism on international human rights ’ regimes, and on rule-oflaw-providing institutions detached from immediate democratic control, such as the courts and the administration.

This is a crisis with multiple dimensions, which are mutually reinforcing themselves thus pushing our constitutional civilisation to the edge of disaster and self-destruction. Key constitutional principles, paradigms and doctrines are put under severe pressure from forces stemming from both within and outside the domestic constitutional and political system. The institutional design seems rather outdated to give a proper response to the contemporary political, economic and social challenges to which it is exposed. The civil societies are imploding. Human rights are massively violated. Constitutional empowerment is used in unpredictable ways, producing mass disavowal of traditional politics and deep cracks in established normative ideologies.

In addition, there are objective determinants of the crisis. The most important of them are the information technology (IT) revolution, the rise of importance of new-media-producing populism, fake news, infodemics and the severe turbulences in the neoliberal world order, questioning not only neoliberal globalisation – itself a problematic phenomenon – but also the very foundations of the post-World War II international law architecture of peace, political and economic interaction.