In the first chapter of the book, I refer to the existing tensions between constitutionalism and democracy. More specifically, I focus on the difficulties shown by the prevailing constitutional system to carry out the main promises it made at its foundational moment—the promises on which its legitimacy stands: its inclusive promise (the promise of “full representation”); its promise of respect for the rights of overlooked minorities; and -most significantly- its promise to recognize the sovereignty of the people’s voice. In this chapter, I maintain that present institutions are no longer capable of meeting the expectations that they generated, while the society increasingly sees them as alien, distant, and removed.

Depending upon how one defines the term ‘international commercial court’, the twenty-first century has witnessed a growth, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, of specialist courts which appear to have been established with the resolution of international commercial disputes in mind. This chapter considers the role these new courts are fulfilling in the field of international commercial dispute resolution, with a particular emphasis on the role and character of the judiciary and the development of jurisprudence, as well as broader issues relating to access to justice more generally. There also features a short case study in relation to the Qatar International Court and Dispute Resolution Centre.

Chapter 1 evaluates competing EU and member state claims over the constitutional boundaries of ‘constitutional identity’ and Kompetenz-Kompetenz in the European legal order, and identifies two constitutional boundaries of the EU legal order which will impinge on the selection of fiscal federalism models for the EU. The first is fiscal sovereignty. Member state fiscal sovereignty is a permanent constitutional constraint on the application of fiscal federalism theory in the EU. The Union can have no powers other than what the member states have given it, and nemo plus iuris, what the member states have given it is limited by their own ‘constitutional identities’ – of which fiscal sovereignty lies at the core. The second is comprised of the fundamental guiding principles of price stability and ‘fiscal discipline’ (sound public finances, and sustainable balance of payments) binding on the mandate for EMU itself under Article 119(3) TFEU.

Chapter 1 outlines the main issues that the book investigates: the nature of legal and factual uncertainty in 'hard cases' engaging international law governing resort to military force, the jus ad bellum; the role of competing interpretive and strategic cultures in generating and sustaining that uncertainty, by operationalising opposing intuitions about legal interpretation, and 'extra-legal' political, strategic and ethical assessment; and the potential usefulness in dealing with these dilemmas of insights from fields outside this area of law, such as international humanitarian law, legal risk management, and strategic intelligence assessment and forecasting. The chapter describes the research methods used: structured interviews and a survey with thirty-one UK-based international lawyers, and systematic textual analysis of key International Court of Justice cases and scholarly assessments of US-led interventions in Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Finally, the chapter outlines the overall structure and argument of the book.

This chapter has four objectives: (1) to explain the main concepts and the normative stance of the book, (2) to develop the main theory of the book, (3) to overview the history of constitutions and constitutionalism in the Arab world in relation to the book’s theory, and (4) to provide a concise introduction to the Arab Spring constitutional bargains across the region.

Chapter 1 illuminates the concealed politics behind the growing reliance on law and courts to shape public policy and resolve political struggles. Focusing on what is often depicted as a cradle of judicial activism and the "judicialization of politics" – the European Union (EU) – the chapter develops a revisionist theory of lawyers, courts, and political development that animates this book. Beneath the radar, the EU's political development through law is an exemplary story of how lawyers mobilize courts to catalyze institutional change – alongside the limits, mutations, and consequences accompanying these efforts. It is a story that places in stark relief how political orders forged through networks of courts emerge, why judges would resist these institutional changes when they would augment their own power, and the conditions whereby lawyers can overcome bureaucratic and political resistances to judicialization. The chapter introduces the concept of ghostwriting to describe lawyers who act as agents of change while cloaked behind the sheepskin of rights-conscious litigants and activist judges. It then outlines a research design to exhume how the politics of lawyers shaped the tortuous development of the world’s sole supranational polity, concluding with a roadmap for the rest of the book.

There is a tendency in current constitutional thinking to reduce populism to a single set of universal elements. These theories juxtapose populism with constitutionalism and argue that populism is by definition antithetical to constitutionalism.1 Populism, according to this view, undermines the very substance of constitutional (liberal) democracy.2 By attacking the core elements of constitutional democracy, such as independent courts, free media, civil rights and fair electoral rules, populism by necessity degenerates into one or another form of anti-liberal and authoritarian order.3

This chapter presents the fragmentation of law applicable to targeting in armed conflict, which spans international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and international criminal law. It discusses the interrelationships among these branches of law. Considering IHL’s most direct relevance to targeting in armed conflict, it reviews its material, geographical, temporal, and personal scope. It addresses the foundations of IHL, including the relationship between the principles of humanity and military necessity, as well as the perception of IHL as a regime that authorizes rather than restricts attacks, and also the principle of equality, theoretically designed to ensure implementation of IHL. In the final part of the chapter, the definitions of the central terms used throughout this monograph are discussed – namely that of attack and permissible degree of force to be used against lawful targets – and the restrictions on means and methods of warfare in the same context.

This chapter introduces the main themes explored in this book, provides an overview of the methodological framework utilized and summarizes the main claims advanced.

The lawyer of the future will exist as a ‘polytechnic’ or ‘many-skilled’ professional, applying their legal expertise to a client’s changing world in an increasingly agile way and within a range of organisational settings. For legal educators, there is a need to consider how education can best prepare future lawyers for this reality. The long view suggests that we should be looking to build core skills in legal, design and logic principles rather than learning specific technologies that may be rapidly superseded. But how can we develop these skills, and how we can balance the need to understand core academic principles of law against the need for applied, workplace experience? This chapter looks at the balancing process, focusing on the impact of changing roles in law firms and the demands of the in-house legal and law-advisory-organisation dynamic. It examines how legal education can instil within lawyers, both an understanding of the principles of law alongside an appreciation of the application of those principles in the workplace. It presents a vision of the roles and specialisations that are likely to emerge within the profession, and considers how the future work of lawyers will sit alongside alternative paths into the legal industry.