The conference addresses the connection between central models of the rule of law and specific preconditions and contexts. In the EU, the topic is particularly apposite 20 years after the so-called ‘Big Bang Enlargement’. Andrei Pleșu, the honorary Rector of the project’s host institution (Minister of Foreign Affairs during the pre-accession, 1997-1999), beautifully proposed that “[v]iewed historically, Europe looks less like a schematic apricot and more like a pomegranate, with multiple cores.” Centrality is however important as the condition for the possibility of gauging conformity with, rapprochement towards, deviation from an ideal model. In nation-state constitutionalism, from the 19^thcentury onwards, the road towards centrality has always implied a mise à niveau of the periphery by incorporation of a prestigious Western constitutional model. The latter was usually itself IKEA-patented on other, even more central practices: Romania (whose elites dubbed it “Belgium of the Orient” at the time) copied the Belgian model in 1866, whereas Belgium, in 1831, looked up to and emulated France, the Netherlands, and England.

Such hierarchies and orders have been anything but self-evident recently. Many core models receded in terms of their power to command peripheral/global respect. The United States, for example, undoubtedly a hugely influential central model in constitutional law, has seen its status downgraded to that of a flawed democracy. Its place was severely docked in various law and development rankings; in the EIU Democracy Index (2022), for example, the US fell to position 30 (below Portugal and Israel, slightly above Slovenia and Botswana). In Western Europe also, parties which used to be on the quarantined fringe are on the steady rise and question unabashedly institutions and norms, both national and international. What used to be peripheral is no longer quarantined at the periphery. Why this is so and what can the (rule of) law do about it (if anything) are central questions in this event.

Program available HERE