Ireland Votes for Home Rule Maimon Schwarzschild

Irish voters have rejected the Lisbon Treaty, which is the European "Constitution" under a different name, itself rejected by French and Dutch voters two years ago.  Both the "Constitution" and the Treaty were deliberately undecipherable, but what they amounted to was a European superstate, in which important decisions would be made by bureacratic elites, almost completely unanswerable to a democratic electorate of any kind.  Ireland was the only European country to put the Treaty to a referendum.  As President Sarkozy of France has said, if voters in other European countries had a chance to vote on the Treaty - which of course they don't - they would vote it down everywhere.

Here is John O'Sullivan:

[E]veryone now expects that Europe will find some way to ignore the voters yet again...  If the Irish decision is simply brushed aside as the previous French and Dutch rejections were, then we will have to come to terms with the fact that the EU is not merely undemocratic but anti-democratic in practice and in principle. What will that mean for U.S.-EU relations?

As Mike says, it's a real question why the national elites are so eager to give up their countries' sovereignty.  (The political, academic, and business elites in Ireland were vociferous in support of the Treaty, as was true in France and Holland for the "Constitution" as well.)  The "transnational" American elite has the same impulse.  Hence John Kerry's "world test" for American foreign policy and self-defence.  And hence the selective citation of foreign law - when it conforms to American left-liberal orthodoxy - by the leftward wing of the US Supreme Court.

The best book about this that I know is Jeremy Rabkin's Law Without Nations? Why Constitutional Government Requires Sovereign States.  It's a sharply written, clear, and very penetrating book.  The theme is summarised in the title (not always true of book titles!), but Rabkin's analysis is deep - historically and legally - and Rabkin offers lots of evidence.  It's an important book, agree or disagree.  Give it a read! 

Comments

[y81]

Supreme Court justices, law professors, people on the extreme liberal end of the U.S. political spectrum, etc. know that their agendas aren't particularly popular with their fellow citizens. They hope to join with others of their class (educated, cosmopolitan, socially liberal etc.) to implement their preferred measures. Obviously undemocratic multinational institutions are a useful vehicle for that purpose. It doesn't seem particularly mysterious.

You could say that the Steven Breyers, Jack Balkins and Matthew Yglesiases of the world are sacrificing the power of their country to increase the power of their class. I don't see where it says that that is an evil thing to do.

[Topher]

You have to appreciate the bold impudence of Brussels thinking they could just change the name of the "constitution" to the "lisbon treaty" and voters wouldn't have the same concerns.