The Constitution in Jeopardy
The Constitution in Jeopardy

Author: Russ Feingold

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2022-08-30

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1541701542

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A former U.S. senator joins a legal scholar to examine a hushed effort to radically change our Constitution, offering a warning and a way forward. Over the last two decades, a fringe plan to call a convention under the Constitution's amendment mechanism—the nation's first ever—has inched through statehouses. Delegates, like those in Philadelphia two centuries ago, would exercise nearly unlimited authority to draft changes to our fundamental law, potentially altering anything from voting and free speech rights to regulatory and foreign policy powers. Such a watershed moment would present great danger, and for some, great power. In this important book, Feingold and Prindiville distill extensive legal and historical research and examine the grave risks inherent in this effort. But they also consider the role of constitutional amendment in modern life. Though many focus solely on judicial and electoral avenues for change, such an approach is at odds with a cornerstone ideal of the Founding: that the People make constitutional law, directly. In an era defined by faction and rejection of long-held norms, The Constitution in Jeopardy examines the nature of constitutional change and asks urgent questions about what American democracy is, and should be.

The Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers

Author: Alexander Hamilton

Publisher: Read Books Ltd

Published: 2018-08-20

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 1528785878

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Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.

Constitution for a Disunited Nation
Constitution for a Disunited Nation

Author: Gabor Attila Toth

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2012-12-20

Total Pages: 589

ISBN-13: 6155225184

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More than two decades after the post-communist constitutional transition, Hungary got into the spotlight again. As a result of the 2010 elections, the governing majority gained two-thirds of the seats in parliament, which made constitutional revision exceptionally easy, bypassing extensive political and social deliberations. In April 2011, on the first anniversary of the 2010 election, a brand new constitution was promulgated, named the Fundamental Law. This collection is the most comprehensive account of the Fundamental Law and its underlying principles. The objective is to analyze this constitutional transition from the perspectives of comparative constitutional law, legal theory and political philosophy. The authors outline and analyze how the current constitutional changes are altering the basic structure of the Hungarian State. The key concepts of the theoretical inquiry are sociological and normative legitimacy, majoritarian and partnership approach to democracy, procedural and substantive elements of constitutionalism. Changes are also examined in the field of human rights, focusing on the principles of equality, dignity, and civil liberties.

A Constitution for the Living
A Constitution for the Living

Author: Beau Breslin

Publisher:

Published: 2021-04-20

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9780804776707

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What would America's Constitutions have looked like if each generation wrote its own? "The earth belongs...to the living, the dead have neither powers nor rights over it." These famous words, written by Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, reflect Jefferson's lifelong belief that each generation ought to write its own Constitution. According to Jefferson each generation should take an active role in endorsing, renouncing, or changing the nation's fundamental law. Perhaps if he were alive today to witness our seething debates over constitutional interpretation, he would feel vindicated in this belief. Madison's response was that a Constitution must endure over many generations to gain the credibility needed to keep a nation strong and united. History tells us that Jefferson lost that debate. But what if he had prevailed? In A Constitution for the Living, Beau Breslin reimagines American history to answer that question. By tracing the story from the 1787 Constitutional Convention up to the present, Breslin presents an engaging and insightful narrative account of historical figures and how they might have shaped their particular generation's Constitution. For all those who want to be in the candlelit taverns where the Founders sat debating fundamental issues over wine; to witness towering figures of American history, from Abraham Lincoln to Booker T. Washington, play out hypothetical meetings and conversations that are startling and revealing; and to attend a Constitutional Convention taking place in the present day--this book brings these possibilities to life with sensitivity, verve, and compelling historical detail. This book is, above all, a call for a more engaged American public at a time when change seems close at hand, if we dare to imagine it.

Strangers to the Constitution
Strangers to the Constitution

Author: Gerald L. Neuman

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-07-01

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1400821959

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Gerald Neuman discusses in historical and contemporary terms the repeated efforts of U.S. insiders to claim the Constitution as their exclusive property and to deny constitutional rights to aliens and immigrants--and even citizens if they are outside the nation's borders. Tracing such efforts from the debates over the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 to present-day controversies about illegal aliens and their children, the author argues that no human being subject to the governance of the United States should be a "stranger to the Constitution." Thus, whenever the government asserts its power to impose obligations on individuals, it brings them within the constitutional system and should afford them constitutional rights. In Neuman's view, this mutuality of obligation is the most persuasive approach to extending constitutional rights extraterritorially to all U.S. citizens and to those aliens on whom the United States seeks to impose legal responsibilities. Examining both mutuality and more flexible theories, Neuman defends some constitutional constraints on immigration and deportation policies and argues that the political rights of aliens need not exclude suffrage. Finally, in regard to whether children born in the United States to illegally present alien parents should be U.S. citizens, he concludes that the Constitution's traditional shield against the emergence of a hereditary caste of "illegals" should be vigilantly preserved.

Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights
Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights

Author: Alfredo Narváez Medécigo

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-11-07

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 3319245627

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This book, which originated from the broadly held view that there is a lack of Rule-of-law in Mexico, and from the emphasis of traditional academia on cultural elements as the main explanation, explores the question of whether there is any relationship between the system of constitutional review ― and thus the ‘law’ as such ― and the level of Rule-of-law in a given state. To do so, it elaborates a theoretical model for achieving Rule-of-law and compares it to the constitutional review systems of the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Mexico. The study concludes that the two former states correspond to the model, while the latter does not. This is fundamentally due to the role each legal system assigns to ordinary jurisdiction in carrying out constitutional review. Whereas the US and Germany have fostered the policy that constitutional review regarding the enforcement of basic rights is the responsibility of ordinary courts, Mexico has relied too heavily on the specialized constitutional jurisdiction.

Customary International Law in Times of Fundamental Change
Customary International Law in Times of Fundamental Change

Author: Michael P. Scharf

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-05-31

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1107276764

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This is the first book to explore the concept of 'Grotian Moments'. Named for Hugo Grotius, whose masterpiece De jure belli ac pacis helped marshal in the modern system of international law, Grotian Moments are transformative developments that generate the unique conditions for accelerated formation of customary international law. In periods of fundamental change, whether by technological advances, the commission of new forms of crimes against humanity, or the development of new means of warfare or terrorism, customary international law may form much more rapidly and with less state practice than is normally the case to keep up with the pace of developments. The book examines the historic underpinnings of the Grotian Moment concept, provides a theoretical framework for testing its existence and application, and analyzes six case studies of potential Grotian Moments: Nuremberg, the continental shelf, space law, the Yugoslavia Tribunal's Tadic decision, the 1999 NATO intervention in Serbia and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Arguing Fundamental Rights
Arguing Fundamental Rights

Author: Agustín J. Menéndez

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-11-22

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1402049196

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This book explores the trail-blazing Theory of Constitutional Rights of Robert Alexy. The authors combine critical analysis of the structural elements of Alexy’s theory with an assessment of its applied relevance, paying special attention to the UK Human Rights Act and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Alexy himself opens the book with an insightful contextualisation of his theory of fundamental rights within his general legal theory.