Cosmopolitan constitutionalism : linking local engagement with international economic law and human rights

Democratic and republican constitutionalism emphasize, since ancient times, the need for holding governance of public goods legally and democratically accountable in order to limit abuses of public and private powers and protect public goods through legislation, administration, adjudication, 'public reason' and 'republican virtues'. Globalization continues to transform national into transnational public goods and requires constituting, limiting, regulating and justifying multilevel governance institutions so as to transform the 'international law in the books' into multilevel legislative, administrative and judicial protection of transnational public goods. Even though all UN member states have accepted human rights obligations, global democracy is likely to remain a utopia for a long time. This contribution discusses the republican and cosmopolitan principles underlying UN and GATT/WTO law. The 'disconnected UN/WTO governance' needs to be limited by stronger republican and cosmopolitan rights to invoke and enforce human rights and economic agreements in domestic jurisdictions in order to strengthen the legal, democratic and judicial accountability of multilevel governance of transnational public goods and 'link local engagement' with mutually beneficial transnational cooperation among citizens. Comparative institutional analyses confirm that 'cosmopolitan international agreements' empowering citizens and decentralized treaty compliance procedures (e.g. in human rights, commercial, trade, investment and criminal law) have been more effective than 'Westphalian agreements' prioritizing foreign policy discretion of governments over rights and remedies of citizens