Constitutionalising Secession

by Haljan, David

• ISBN13: 9781849464376
• ISBN10: 1849464375
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-02-25
• Publisher: Hart Publishing

Summary

Constitutionalising Secession proceeds from the question, 'What, if anything, does the law have to say about a secession crisis?' But rather than approaching secession through the optic of political or nationalist institutional accommodation, this book focuses on the underpinnings to a constitutional order as a law-making community, underpinnings laid bare by secession pressures. Relying on the corrosive effects of secession, it explores the deep structure of a constitutional order and the motive forces creating and sustaining that order. A core idea is that the normativity of law is best understood, through a constitutional optic, as an integrative, associative force. Constitutionalising Secession critically analyses conceptions of constitutional order implicit in the leading models of secession, and takes as a leading case-study the judicial and legislative response to secession in Canada. The book therefore develops a concept of constitutionalism and law-making - 'associative constitutionalism' - to describe their deep structure as a continuing, integrative process of association. This model of a dynamic process of value formation can address both the association and the disassociation of constitutional systems.

Author Biography

David Haljan is an Affiliated Senior Researcher in the Institute for Constitutional Law of the Faculty of Law at the University of Leuven,and Co-Editor of the Constitutional Law Series, International Encyclopaedia of Laws.