The human world is constructed from fictions that make social organization possible – evolutionary products of the adaptation of particular societies to changing circumstances. The struggle to prevent law from being merely the tool of governmental power produced the idea of a law transcending all societies and the idea of a constitutionalism that makes law into the ultimate source of all public power within a society. The emergence of so-called states as a dominant fiction at the international level was not matched by the production of controlling constitutive ideas corresponding to those in national societies. The recent emergence at the international level of the traditional constitutional systems of national societies makes an idea of the rule of law in international society both a possibility and a necessity.
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your Elgar Online account
-
Show ItemsFront Matter
