Constitutional Dialogues in Comparative Perspective

The book contains essays written by scholars of law and political science exploring in interdisciplinary fashion the relationship between law and politics in cross-national perspective, focusing principally on contemporary Europe. Despite a revival of interest in the United States in the role of the legal system within the overall political system, the European dimensions of the relationship are only beginning to receive the attention they deserve. Europe is especially interesting because of the enormity of contemporary changes there. In the West, domestic developments are to some extent over-shadowed by the emergence of two supranational courts - the European Court of Justice (ECJ) of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). In the East, nations are reconstituting their whole legal and political orders. The essays in the book will span the field of current interest, including questions of judicial activism, the protection of human rights, the roles of the ECJ and the ECHR, and the challenges of judicial and constitutional reform in the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The essays in the book result from an intensive four-week faculty seminar held at the University of Iowa's Center for Advanced Studies.