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The primacy of EU law continues to be challenged by domestic courts relying on the notion of constitutional identity. These challenges are no longer limited to the Solange case law of the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG) and the controlimiti doctrine of the Italian Corte Costituzionale. More recently, the Hungarian Constitutional Court introduced the notion of ‘historical constitutional identity’ – at a time when the rule of law and independence of the judiciary are in retreat in several parts of the EU. Against this backdrop, this article argues that the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) missed a formidable opportunity to clarify the outer limits of constitutional identity under Article 4(2) of the Treaty on European Union in Taricco II. Given prudential considerations as well as parallel legislative developments, it can be explained why the CJEU chose to side-step the issue. However, in the Corte Costituzionale, the CJEU found a cooperative and EU law friendly interlocutor which would have allowed it to clarify these limits on its own terms. The CJEU cannot and should not hide from this issue forever. The next domestic court to raise this issue may be less interested in judicial dialogue and more in undermining the primacy of EU law in ever more extensive ways.

In the international legal order, international bodies protecting human rights are both of a different nature and independent. Judicial dialogue consists in referring to decisions or international instruments that are external sources to the system in which the international body has to exercise its power of interpretation. The example of the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatments will be used to illustrate this spontaneous practice. Judicial dialogue is seen as an interpretive technique, allowing to reach common interpretations of the substance, the meaning and the scope of this prohibition, by reaching a normative convergence through the use of external sources that shows an interpretive convergence in the first place. Nevertheless, the use of external sources does not always lead to extensive interpretations since it can also highlight disagreements in which case restrictive interpretations are inevitable. Finally, it appears that the international jurisprudential dialogue can both contribute to coordinate and harmonize the application and interpretation of international human rights law in order to protect the international public order.; Dans l’ordre juridique international, les organes de protection des droits de la personne sont de nature différente, indépendants et non hiérarchisés. Le phénomène du dialogue juridictionnel est une pratique spontanée qui consiste pour un organe de protection à intégrer dans le processus d’interprétation d’une disposition donnée, des éléments étrangers à son système, qu’il s’agisse de décisions ou d’instruments de protection émanant d’autres organes. Le dialogue est illustré avec la jurisprudence interprétée à l’aide de ces éléments extrasystémiques en matière de prohibition de la torture et autres peines ou traitements cruels, inhumains ou dégradants. Il est envisagé comme une technique interprétative permettant d’aboutir à des interprétations communes du contenu, du sens et de la portée de cette interdiction, bien que ces interprétations partagées puissent être extensives ou restrictives. L’étude interroge l’étendue et la teneur du pouvoir juridictionnel dans l’ordre juridique international ainsi que sa capacité à aboutir à une convergence normative en matière de protection des droits de la personne, qui découlerait d’une convergence interprétative. Implicitement, le dialogue joue le rôle d’un outil de régulation et de coordination qui s’impose spontanément dans la pratique interprétative des organes internationaux, contribuant à l’émergence d’un objectivisme jurisprudentiel. Ce dernier tend à s’opposer au volontarisme étatique dans un but de protection de l’ordre public international et de garantie des droits de la personne.

Personal participation in criminal proceedings is subject to a very different consideration among the various legal orders as an inviolable duty of the defendant rather than as a waivable right of the same. Depending on how the latter is framed, states may either permit or ban or subject to some limitations trials in absentia. The purpose of this essay is to provide a comparative overview focusing on the attitude of some legal orders towards trials in absentia in order to determine whether the US and European constitutionalism had an impact on the framing of these principles in the various legal orders. Particularly, it is argued that, in the absence of any black-or-white distinction, the dichotomy between common law and civil law systems would not provide an appropriate perspective to capture the existence of different attitudes between the understanding of personal participation as a duty and as a right.

El Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina (ICCAL) se refiere a un enfoque regional sobre el constitucionalismo transformador. Dicho enfoque se nutre de la inquietante experiencia respecto de condiciones de vida inaceptables y apunta a la transformación de la realidad política y social de América Latina por medio del fortalecimiento concertado de la democracia, el Estado de derecho y los derechos humanos. Los problemas comunes a los países latinoamericanos, tales como la exclusión de amplios sectores de la sociedad y la débil normatividad del derecho, son temas centrales de este enfoque. El ICCAL no apuesta por la integración funcional de la región, sino más bien por un constitucionalismo regional de los derechos con garantías supranacionales. Como resultado de esto último, los representantes del ICCAL reconocen la muy estrecha relación que existe entre el derecho constitucional, el derecho internacional y el derecho comparado. La apertura de los ordenamientos jurídicos nacionales de numerosos países latinoamericanos hacia el derecho internacional, y en particular hacia el sistema interamericano de protección de los derechos humanos, es de especial importancia y constituye el núcleo normativo del ICCAL. La presente contribución analiza los elementos centrales de dicho enfoque y describe sus contornos específicamente latinoamericanos. Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina (ICCAL) stands for a regional approach in transformative constitutionalism. This approach arises out of the deeply troubling experience of unacceptable living conditions and aims at changing political and social realities of Latin America through the concerted strengthening of democracy, the rule of law and human rights. Common problems, such as the exclusion of wide sectors of the population, or the weak normativity of law, are at its center. ICCAL does not place its hopes on the functional integration of the region but rather on a rights based, supranationally-secured and regionally rooted constitutionalism. As a result, ICCAL representatives insist on the close ties between constitutional, international and comparative law. In this sense, the opening of numerous national legal orders to international law and to the Inter-American System of Human Rights Protection is of particular importance as it constitutes the normative core of ICCAL. The present contribution analyzes the main elements of this approach and describes its specific Latin American Gestalt.

El Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina (ICCAL) se refiere a un enfoque regional sobre el constitucionalismo transformador. Dicho enfoque se nutre de la inquietante experiencia respecto de condiciones de vida inaceptables y apunta a la transformación de la realidad política y social de América Latina por medio del fortalecimiento concertado de la democracia, el Estado de derecho y los derechos humanos. Los problemas comunes a los países latinoamericanos, tales como la exclusión de amplios sectores de la sociedad y la débil normatividad del derecho, son temas centrales de este enfoque. El ICCAL no apuesta por la integración funcional de la región, sino más bien por un constitucionalismo regional de los derechos con garantías supranacionales. Como resultado de esto último, los representantes del ICCAL reconocen la muy estrecha relación que existe entre el derecho constitucional, el derecho internacional y el derecho comparado. La apertura de los ordenamientos jurídicos nacionales de numerosos países latinoamericanos hacia el derecho internacional, y en particular hacia el sistema interamericano de protección de los derechos humanos, es de especial importancia y constituye el núcleo normativo del iccal. La presente contribución analiza los elementos centrales de dicho enfoque y describe sus contornos específicamente latinoamericanos. Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina (ICCAL) stands for a regional approach in transformative constitutionalism. This approach arises out of the deeply troubling experience of unacceptable living conditions and aims at changing political and social realities of Latin America through the concerted strengthening of democracy, the rule of law and human rights. Common problems, such as the exclusion of wide sectors of the population, or the weak normativity of law, are at its center. iccal does not place its hopes on the functional integration of the region but rather on a rights based, supranationally-secured and regionally rooted constitutionalism. As a result, iccal representatives insist on the close ties between constitutional, international and comparative law. In this sense, the opening of numerous national legal orders to international law and to the Inter-American System of Human Rights Protection is of particular importance as it constitutes the normative core of iccal. The present contribution analyzes the main elements of this approach and describes its specific Latin American Gestalt.

Dialogue between different jurisdictional levels within complex constitutional systems is constantly on-going. Within the EU, this dialogue is an indispensable condition for the functioning of the Rule of Law, described as the tension between gubernaculum (the body of positive law) and jurisdictio (the principles of law beyond the sovereign’s reach). Unlike other constitutional systems where the dialogue between the legislature and the judiciary plays the crucial role, the interaction between national courts and the Court of Justice of the EU is the only way through which the EU can be precluded from becoming a self-defining, tyrannical, constitutional order. As national courts seek to protect their constitutional values, they supply an important source of jurisdictio. Although the EU system offers a wider understanding of dialogical frameworks, it is under threat of dissolution. Where the Court of Justice feigns to cherish this inter-judicial dialogue, in reality it relies on its own supremacy to construct the EU.