The Proliferation of Constitutional Law and Constitutional Adjudication, or How American Judicial Review Came to Europe After All

Abstract

This article submits that the continental European (Kelsenian) model of constitutional adjudication is affected, if not undermined, by the proliferation of constitutional adjudication outside centralized constitutional courts, due to 'globalization' in the European context, which results in a dispersion of constitutional adjudication that bears some of the traits of American judicial review. This contribution focuses on the institutional implications this has for the position and legitimacy of courts and constitutional adjudication by both national and European courts, and for the dynamics of their mutual relations. These implications and dynamics, it is submitted, are in some important respects different from the manner in which globalization plays out in American courts.