Constituent power and Europe, December 12, 2008

Forged by Sieyès, the theory of constituent power has played a key role in the way French legal thought has interpreted the principles of modern constitutionalism.
A return to reflection and theoretical questioning on the notion of constituent power may now seem a necessity, if we are to analyze the legal and political issues at stake in the highly complex process of constitutional revision, through which each of the member peoples of the European Union is expressing its support for the text of the Lisbon Treaty, in which the very possibility of the existence of a European "constituent power" is at stake.

Program

The theory of constituent power

9:00 - Jon Elster, Professor at the Collège de France
Constituent power and the unwritten constitution

9:35 - Jeffrey Lenowitz, doctoral student at Columbia University (New York)
The People Say No: Constitutional Rejection and the Second Movement of the Constituent Power

10 h 10 - Claude Klein, Professor, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Inexistence or disappearance of constituent power?

10:55 a.m. - Break

11 h 10 - Pasquale Pasquino, Professor, New York University, Director of Research, CNRS
Constituent power and limited government in 18th-century America

11:55 a.m. - Arnaud Le Pillouer, Associate Professor, Université de Cergy-Pontoise
Reconstitution(s) of constituent power

European constituent power

2:30 pm - Ulrich Preuss, Professor at the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin
Is there constituent power in the European Union?

15:15 - Guy Carcassonne, Professor, Université Paris X - Nanterre
The "popular" ratification of the European Treaty

4:00 pm - Break

4.15pm - Paolo Ponzano, Senior Advisor for Institutional Issues at the European Commission
The constitutionalization process in the European Union

17 h 00 - Olivier Cayla, Director of Studies, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales
The obscure identity of European constituent power