Canadian Federalism and Treaty Powers: Organic Constitutionalism at Work (Table of Contents and Introduction)

Abstract:     
With the increased mobility and interdependence brought on by globalisation, governments can no longer deal effectively with what were traditionally regarded as "domestic issues" unless they cooperate among themselves. While international law may once have been a sort of inter-state law concerned mostly with relations between states, it now looks increasingly inside state borders and has become, to a large degree, a trans-governmental law. While this creates significant challenges even for highly-unified "nation-states", the challenges are even greater for federations in which powers have been divided up between the central government and federated states. What roles should central governments and federated states play in creating and implementing this new form of governance? How is it possible to reconcile the autonomy of federated states and their existential communities with the need for efficiency?
Using the Canadian federation as its starting point, this case study illustrates a range of factors to be considered in the appropriate distribution of treaty powers within a federation. But it offers something more as well. Professor Cyr shows how - because it has no specific provisions dealing with the distribution of treaty powers - the Canadian constitution has "organically" developed a tight-knit set of rules and principles responding to these distributional factors. This book is therefore both about the role of federated states in the current world order and an illustration of how organic constitutionalism works.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 51

Keywords: federalism, constitutional law, constitutional theory, treaty-making powers, treaty-implementing powers, existential communities, functional regimes

JEL Classification: D72, D73, D74, H11, H77, K33

Accepted Paper Series