Global Constitutionalism: Integration or Fragmentation of International Relations during an Economic Recession

Social Sciences. 2021. Vol. 52. No. 2. P. 47–66.

Medushevsky A. N.

During the pandemic crisis and subsequent economic recession,
the liberal idea of the global constitutional order and governance came
under severe criticism from many different angles. This theoretical construct
was said to be no more than a formal reflection of the late liberal triumphalism
that has nothing to do with the current international order based on the
disintegration of international law, growing economic and military rivalry,
progressive separation of global regions, fragmented international regimes,
and the prevalence of egoistic great power motives. I subject all those arguments
to scrutiny, criticism, and reinterpretation, discussing such topics as
global legal development, the constitutional reconfiguration of the international
order, global regionalism, and the role of global governance institutions
in the legal regulation of economic order. I show that the unstable balance
between integration and fragmentation of the international legal system in the
period of crisis could be used to promote very different versions of globalization,
stimulating competition of the world elites over the design of future
global governance and demonstrating the importance of a new coordinated
global policy of law.

Keywords: global governance, regionalization, transnational law, global constitutionalism, constitutionalization and fragmentation in international affairs

Publication based on the results of: Глобальный конституционализм: проекты, стратегии продвижения, политический вклад (2020)