3er Wiener Workshop zum Internationalen Verfassungsrecht

The relevance of International Constitutional Law steadily increases in the age of globalization and Europeanization. The necessity to shed light on the concepts of national constitutions is reflected by the halted European process of constitutionalization as well as the reform of the United Nations.

The ‘young’ constitutions of (South) Eastern Europe or South Africa as well as the new constitutions of Afghanistan or Iraq clearly show the importance of academic research on constitutions not only from a national but an international perspective.

International Constitutional Law as legal discipline combines constitutional law, public international law, European law and legal theory. At an academic level students shall learn to understand constitutions in their historic but in particular in their contemporary context and learn to question constitutional concepts instead of accepting them as sacrosanct.

International Constitutional Law stands for the paradigm shift away from the General Theory of Law and State (Allgemeine Staatslehre) to research on constitutions in general, thereby transcending state frontiers to regional and international organizations. In the long term, the Vienna Workshop on International Constitutional Law shall thereby establish a platform and network for people interested in the subject matter of research.