*** MICHEL MOUSKHELY, GASTON STEFANI: Confédération et fédération: l'antithèse. Textes choisis par Jean-Francis Billion et Jean-Luc Prevel. Presse fédéraliste (Internet: pressefederaliste.eu) and Fédérop (Le Pont du Rôle, F-24680 Gardonne. Tel: (33-5) 53278095 - Fax: 53278072 - email: editions.federop@wanadoo.fr - Internet: http://www.federop.com ). "Textes fédéralistes" series. 2012, 161 pp, €16. ISBN 978-2-85792-205-6.
A book's back cover is often more intriguing than a sales pitch. The blurb on the back cover of this book, for example, says the book is important at a time when, amidst the economic and financial crisis that has been shaking the world and threatening to destroy the European Union, our leaders are proving incapable of clearly choosing a European Federation, and thus are letting the crisis of the nation state deteriorate by allowing the danger of a return to nationalism, fascism and totalitarianism (which is on the cards in Hungary at the moment) and therefore the logic of war. These are dangers that many European observers have seen growing in recent months, although they are not usually stated so bluntly. Political leaders, European and national alike, usually deny their existence, or at least their pertinence. This book therefore aims to quash the errors of judgement that federalism falls victim to, being a political concept that is often undermined by being talked about by people who don't understand what it is exactly and don't want to apply it because they don't want to let go of their powers or their parcel of sovereignty (or appearance of sovereignty). Indefatigable activists in the French section of the European Federalists Union, Jean-Francis Billion and Jean-Luc Prevel see it as a touchstone to help Europe move out of the eye of the storm. Paradoxically, the articles they have collected are at least fifty-two years 'young'!
The book starts with excerpts from a book, 'L'Europe face au fédéralisme,' that is even 'younger' because it was published back in 1949, before the Council of Europe had even been created. The book is so old that Billion and Prevel admit that they have completely lost track of one of the two authors, the 'unknown federalist soldier' Gaston Stefani. The Georgian Michel Mouskhely died in an accident in Val d'Aosta on 11 July 1964, during a mountain-climbing expedition organised by some of his students at the University Federalist Studies College founded in 1961 by his friend Alexandre Marc, head of the 'Centre International de Formation Européenne' in Nice. A lawyer who lectures at Paris University's 'Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales,' at the Law and Political and Economic Sciences Faculty of Fouad the First University in Cairo and at Strasbourg University's 'Institut d'Etudes Politiques,' this brother-in-arms to Altiero Spinelli suggested, along with his fellow activist, recommends a draft European constitution, which figures in one of the excerpts. The book then includes the complete brochure 'Confédération ou Fédération Européenne,' which he wrote by himself and which was published in 1953, as the European Coal and Steel Community was being founded. Finally, there is also a document entitled 'Structures Fédérales,' published in 1960 in the very first issue of the 'L'Europe en Formation' review founded by Alexandre Marc, the high priest of fundamental federalism, which included Mouskhely as one of its members.
Why dust off these writings from the past? Because some have not aged in the slightest and are like Tom Thumb's little pebbles that help him find his way and might help Europeans find their own way in the integration process. Lucio Levi points out in the preface that these old documents bear witness to 'the awareness that nation states are the main obstacle in the road towards the European Federation,' which events since the middle of the last century have tended to confirm rather than deny. The selected excerpts shed ever pertinent light on legal and political questions surrounding the possible foundation one day of a European Federation, setting out a clear distinction between federation and confederation, which reveals that the European Union is midway between the two. Other concepts in the headlines these days, like 'shared competencies' or 'union of countries and individuals' are included, the finest example of a topic in the news being the following extract from 'L'Europe face au federalisme': 'In terms of finances, (…) the federal State will have to have its own revenues so that it is not entirely dependent on the relationship between federated States.' Doesn't' this take us right to the heart of future debates about own resources and the upcoming Financial Perspectives? Similarly, these now deceased thinkers believed, Prof. Levi explains, that 'ratification of the Constitution by a majority of Member States complies with the principles of democracy and federalism and makes it possible to overcome the resistance nestling in the national veto.' Who could seriously deny that this very question is the hot topic of the moment?
Michel Theys
*** MAGDALENA GÓRA, ZDZISLAW MACH, KATARZYNA ZIELINSKA (Eds.): Collective Identity and Democracy in the Enlarging Europe. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Warsaw Studies in Culture and Society", No. 1. 2012, 214 pp, €35-30. ISBN 978-3-631-62045-8.
In this book, the outcome of a five-year research programme, no fewer than thirteen sociologists and political scientists working in Turkey and various European Union countries examine 'the changing nature of collective identity formation processes in the enlarged and enlarging Europe.' In the light of the influence that 'supranational institutions' have had on the daily life of the 500 million inhabitants of Europe and hence on their initial identities, they discern the type of identity that will emerge from the enlargement process and what type of feeling of belonging might arise from the assertion of a European social and cultural area. Likewise, they also study the new type of collective identity formation that could influence the European integration process, looking in particular at the question in the light of the history of individual central and Eastern European countries. The authors take the reader to Germany, Turkey (looking at how the Turkish elite view the European project), Hungary (where two authors ask whether a collective European identity has already emerged), Poland (where they examine the civic disengagement of the intelligentsia) and the fight for sexual equality in Latvia.
(PBo)
*** JACQUES BEAUCHEMIN (Ed.): Mémoire et démocratie en Occident. Concurrence des mémoires ou concurrence victimaire. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com -Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 'Diversitas' series, No. 8. 2011, 136 pp, €26.90. ISBN 978-90-5201-669-6.
Modern society gives the impression of being more at home with the past than the future, but moving beyond appearances, Jacques Beauchemin points out that the 'disputes and controversies about the truths that history claims to establish are undermining certainty,' as was so spectacularly illustrated recently by the controversy in France about a commemoration of Armenian and Turkish history. The author, who is professor of sociology at Quebec University in Montreal, explains that the reason for this is that uncertainties about the past are rooted further back in time, in the decay of what remains of the unity of the world after the death of God and the end of the great founding myths.' Because it is now down to human beings to write history, history necessarily becomes multifarious. In this book, the complex question of memory is examined from a plurality of perspectives and contexts. The first section looks at the memory dynamic in Québec, while in the second, the authors examine a number of subjects and countries of Europe. Sociologist Régine Robin looks at how the concern for a pluralist memory that recognises the areas of darkness in the history of France took hold from the 1960s onwards, which leads her to describe memory as a crucial element in the composition of identity in French society, with its ability to admit past wrongs and make recompense in the present. Paul May looks at Islam in the United Kingdom and how its identity meshes with British memory, which enables him to show how the construction of political legitimacy is closely connected with the construction of historic memory, particularly for minority groups trying to alter the terms of their identity affiliation with a political community. There is also an essay that aims to change readers' views about a 'world where the hero of one side is the bogeyman of the other.'
(MT)
*** JÜRGEN BRÖHMER (Ed.): The German Constitution Turns 60. Basic Law and Commonwealth Constitution - German and Australian Perspectives. Peter Lang (see above). "Res Publica - Öffentliches une Internationales Recht" series, No. 13. 2011, 230 pp, €41-90. ISBN 978-3-631-60248-5.
This book gives the proceedings of a conference in Canberra organised by the Australian National University for leading German and Australian lawyers, where they discussed common issues and differences between the constitutions of the two countries to mark the sixtieth anniversary of Germany's Grundgesetz. The book covers topics like the two countries' federalism, the concept of human dignity that lies at the heart of the German constitution and legal system, but not in the Australian system (forged as part of the Commonwealth), international cooperation, measures for dealing with social conflicts, relations between the various levels of power and how freedom of expression is protected.
(PBo)
*** ANNA JASIAK: Constitutional Constraints on Ad Hoc Legislation. A Comparative Study of the United States, Germany and the Netherlands. Intersentia (Trinity House, Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, UK. Tel: (32-3) 6801550 - Fax: 6587121 - email: mail@intersentia.be - Internet: http://www.intersentia.be ). Ius Commune Europaeum' series, No. 96. 2011, 321 pp, €75, £71, $105. ISBN 978-1-78068-017-0.
The continuation of a doctoral thesis for Tilburg University in the Netherlands following study at Silesia University in Poland, Georgetown University in Washington and Humboldt University in Berlin, this book sets out detailed research into constitutional issues raised at times by ad hoc legislation. What is ad hoc legislation exactly? It means laws that are passed to deal with one particular problem rather than more general issues. In the introduction, Anna Jasiak quotes the retroactive law passed by the Chamber of Representatives during the financial crisis and against President Obama's wishes to levy a 90% tax on the bonuses paid by banks bailed out a few months beforehand using taxpayers' money. She also quotes laws in the United States and Italy to deal with the euthanasia requests made by the families of two individuals who had been in an 'irreversible' coma for several years. Such one-off laws run counter to the constitutional rule that laws must apply across the board and they therefore merit detailed study. Anna Jasiak'x exhaustive research clearly makes a huge contribution. She gives legal arguments and answers to the question: 'Do all laws for specific cases pose constitutional problems?' After providing a detailed framework for one-off legislation, Anna Jasiak studies several aspects through case studies from the United States, a country of common law, along with Germany and the Netherlands, her concern being to discern 'constitutional principles that could possibly limit the legislature in this respect.' By means of the example of the Netherlands, she also examines the influence played by the European Convention of Human Rights, and hence also the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, in this domain. A rich comparative study runs throughout, along with a suggested typology for this type of legislation.
(MT)
*** MARC FALLON, PATRICK KINSCH, CHRISTIAN KOHLER: Le droit international privé européen en construction / Building European Private International Law. Vingt ans de travaux du GEDIP / Twenty Years' Work by GEDIP. Intersentia (see above). 2011, 888 pp, €140, £133, $196. ISBN 978-1-78068-011-8.
Founded in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) in 1991 by Professors Paul Lagarde and François Rigaux, the European Private International Law Group (GEDIP) organise an annual meeting of lecturers specialising in private international law (open to experts in European law), which has enabled them to contribute to the drawing up of several European civil and business laws. Published to mark GEDIP's twentieth anniversary, this book includes all of its recommendations or draft European laws published in each of the years in consideration, the first of which coming under family law, later including the law of obligations. The subjects addressed include whether an EU convention is required to govern conflict of legal systems for family matters, international protection of cultural goods in the EU and specific problems encountered in contract law (1991), international competence rules for international matters (1993), the law governing conflicting legislation governing non-contractual obligations (1998), contractual obligations (2003), and divorce (2003) and so on. This is a reference book that demonstrates, as Prof. Rigaux points out in the preface, that Europe has become an arena where the law of the future is drawn up. (MT)