Sovereignty is invoked in many discussions today, from Brexit to Catalan independence, but it is rarely clear what, exactly, those who invoke sovereignty mean by it. For the purposes of understanding, analyzing, and understanding legal phenomena, however, a more precise understanding is necessary.
What does sovereignty mean in today’s world, given trends of globalisation, Europeanisation and also polarisation?
The wishes of the Spanish government and those of the Catalan people are diametrically opposed: 90% of voters in the referendum were for independence - but keep in mind also that only about half of the Catalan people voted.
Do the people still have power? Some might feel forgotten and turn to populism promising to give the country back to them. But popular sovereignty is not dead.
The day after the “Brexit”-referendum, with a majority of 51.9% voting to leave the European Union, some speak of the success of democracy (“the people have spoken”). Already, there are calls for referenda in other countries to let the people speak there, too. This suggests that independently of our...
Mark Kawakami: "From a rather ignorant American’s perspective, the cost of learning, debating, and trying to apply the continuously changing (or “harmonizing”) European law is so cumbersome that perhaps it is doing more harm than good to the European legal framework".
