International Regionalism and National Constitutions: A Jurimetric Assessment

Abstract

This paper considers a large global sample of constitutional texts (i.e. 171 constitutions from 153 countries) and assesses to what extent and how they refer to the increasingly important phenomenon of international regionalism (or regional integration) and how they deal with potential sources of tensions and contradictions between the national legal systems and the emerging regional regulatory universes. A typology of clauses is therefore proposed. In addition, some evidence is presented on the evolution of constitutional references over time, and on the relationship between constitutional referencing and the depth of the (de facto and de jure) regionalization processes.

Keywords: regionalism, regional integration, constitutions, jurimetrics