The following remarks deal only with one aspect of Kennedy's article: the attempt to demonstrate Schmitt's imprint on Habermas' work. Here Kennedy has to bear the burden of proof because of the gap between Schmitt, the harbinger of politics as a sphere of existential decision, and Habermas, the theoretician of apolitical rationality. Before dealing with two questions raised by Kennedy — Schmitt's and Habermas’ conception of democracy; and the distinction between legality and legitimacy, it is advisable to briefly review Schmitt's (...) conceptual apparatus. Kennedy begins by ascribing to Schmitt the view that liberal democracy is a deceptive compromise which does not resolve “the material claims to equality.”. (shrink)

Starting from the presupposition that European democracy is necessary to the survival and development of the European Union, the author deals with the process which may entail a European constitution, and discusses the elements of the present legal structure of the EU which are conducive to a European Democracy. In particular, the author focuses on the incomplete, polycentric, and dynamic character of a possible EC/EU constitution, and on the duality of its legitimating principle. This claim is that these characteristics necessitate (...) some institutional modifications of democratic principles if compared with national democracy, and that Euro‐democracy is possible if we do not simply apply the standards of democracy valid for Member States, but succeed in developing criteria which are adequate to the institutional qualities of the EC/EU. Finally, the author maintains the legal character of the regulatory power of the Community, and invokes the mutual legal bonds linking the Member States and their peoples as the source of the Community. (shrink)

The author makes the claim that human rights have become an important institution of international relations, their inherent powerlessness notwithstanding. In the first step of the analysis, the author discusses the positive correlation between a nationâs socioeconomic well-being and the safe guarantee of human rights. However, the social and political disembeddedness of human rights and their universalist character actually constitute their inherent weakness, which is analyzed in the second part. In the third part, which deals with the future development of (...) human rights, the author makes the claim that the process of globalization does not only create the functional networks of economic, political, and military power elites, but also offers hope for the emergence of a global moral community in which the idea of human rights may become an essential institutional pillar. (shrink)