THE EUROPEAN UNION AS A UNION OF DEMOCRACIES, JUSTICE AND RIGHTS

Abstract

That said, constitutional law, as an academic discipline, has evolved to the point where it is no longer limited to examining national constitutions but also encompasses the broader field of study denoted by the term ‘constitutionalism’. ‘Constitutional law beyond the State’ may involve the study of any system of norms that enshrines a commonality of values on which a union of sovereign States and their peoples is founded. Understood in this way, constitutionalism may operate even in the absence of a unitary ‘demos’ and outside the confines of the nation-State.