454 Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (1914– )union,” with the UN functioning as a kind of global federal government on
the obvious model of the federal system of the United States. Th e clearest
intellectual ancestor of constitutionalism was Scelle, who had presented his
monistic, federalist system in explicitly constitutional terms.
Among the leading latter- day constitutionalists have been a number of
German writers. Th e prominent role of Simma has been noted. He went on
to serve on both the I.L.C. and the World Court. Christian Tomuschat, who
taught at the University of Bonn and later at Humboldt University in Berlin,
has been another important fi gure, as have Andreas Paulus of the University
of Göttingen and Bardo Fassbender of Humboldt University. Elsewhere in
Eu rope are Jan Klabbers of the University of Helsinki, Anne Peters of the
University of Basel, and Geir Ulfstein of the University of Oslo. In the
United States, a leading fi gure has been Joel P. Trachtman of the Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy at Tuft s University.
It has not been envisaged that the “constitution” of the international com-
munity would be a single written document— at least not in anything like
the immediate future. Rather, the constitution is seen as the set of values for
a community, what ever their source might be or wherever they might fi nd
expression. Th e international constitution is therefore unwritten and ever-
evolving through practice, more in the manner of the British constitution
than of the written German or American ones. Constitutionalism therefore
refers to a general consensus of values. Th is emphasis on consensus and val-
ues indicates a strong intellectual bond with the New Haven School.
Several fundamental tenets of the constitutionalist version of solidarism
are of note. One is the principle of the rule of law. Power should be exercised
not arbitrarily but according to rules, and in the interest of the general com-
munity. Constitutionalists therefore have an interest in the judicial review-
ability of po liti cal bodies— including the UN Security Council. In this
sense, constitutionalism is a sort of legalistic counterpart of the New Haven
School. Where the New Haven focus was on the decision making itself— that
is, on ensuring that the “right” decisions are made in the fi rst place— the
constitutionalist strategy has been to ensure that there is some kind of judi-
cial supervision that can override or correct “wrong” decisions.
Another central feature of constitutionalism is a stress on organizations,
and systems of order in general, as living, evolving regimes. Th is marks con-
stitutional systems off from “ordinary” treaties, in that the function of an