Graduate School Commencement Exercises Program, May 14, 2009

Graduate School Commencement Exercises Program, May 16, 2009

The European Union: A Comparative Perspective

This chapter, to be included in the Oxford Principles of EU Law volume, compares the federalisms of Europe and the United States. It argues that Europe can be sensibly viewed from both federal and intergovernmental perspectives, and that particular aspects of the European Union’s structure fit each model. In particular, the EU is federal—that is, integrated to a comparable degree to the U.S.—with respect to its distribution of competences and the sovereignty attributed to EU law and institutions. But it is intergovernmental—that is, it preserves a center of gravity within the individual member states—with respect to the allocation of governmental capacity to enforce the law as well as to tax and spend, and also because Europeans continue to identify primarily with their member states. The chapter also addresses two sets of questions about the EU’s future. One concerns the possibility of “creeping centralization” that one observes in the United States, and which one might also detect in the EU’s slogan of “ever closer union.” I argue that any such tendency will be limited by the fact that the modern regulatory and welfare bureaucracies that have spurred centralization in the America instead developed at the member state level in Europe, prior to the advent of the EU. I also consider the impact of exogenous shocks, especially the euro crisis but also parallel crises over migration and terrorism. The response to these crises so far seems to have strengthened the EU’s intergovernmental tendencies. Comparing Europe and the United States can provide helpful insights about both systems-and federal systems in general. As is often true, the primary value of comparative law here is in the questions it raises, not the answers it may provide. Many aspects of federalism taken for granted in one system are considered nonobvious or even controversial in the other, and an appreciation of this fact can enrich federalism debates on both sides of the Atlantic

The influence of Lord Kames (Henry Home) on some of the founders of the United States

The jurist, judge, philosopher and legal historian Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696-1782) was one of the principal representatives of the Scottish Enlightenment. He also shaped considerably the thinking of some of the founders of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Wilson. Franklin exchanged ideas with Kames about art and American affairs. For Adams, Kames was an authority on law and legal history, with a singularly critical stance towards the traditional feudal system. For Jefferson, Kames was an authoritative writer on law and a principal influence in the shaping of Jefferson’s own moral philosophy. Wilson made Kames a role model for young lawyers in a new American spirit. Kames’s thought has influenced these four founders of the United States more substantively than has commonly been assumed

Graduate School Commencement Exercises Program, May 15, 1992

Graduate School Commencement Exercises Program, May 15, 1992

Graduate School Commencement Exercises Program, May 19, 1989

Graduate School Commencement Exercises Program, May 19, 1989

Graduate School Commencement Exercises Program, May 20, 1994

Graduate School Commencement Exercises Program, May 20, 1994

Graduate School Commencement Exercises Program, May 20, 1983.

Graduate School Commencement Exercises Program, May 20, 1983