Questioning Sovereignty: Law, State. and Nation in the European Commonwealth

This books is about the transformation of sovereignty in the United Kingdom and the European Union, the transition from 'sovereign states' to 'post-sovereign states', devolution and nationalism, and the future of the British union. It applies the institutional theory of law to a general inquiry into the relations of law and state, and to the question of the character of a Rechtsstaat or state under the rule of law. This clears the ground for a historical/analytical review of the United Kingdom as union state, and of the Benthamite or Diceyan view of its constitution, grounded in the idea of sovereignty.. "The existing constitution of the 'European Commonwealth' is reviewed critically as an example of a mixed constitution and an argument is proposed about the value or values attaching to democracy and to subsidiarily in this vast commonwealth. Connected to subsidiarity is the issue of contemporary politics of identity all over Europe and beyond. MacCormick puts forward a carefully argued case for a moderate and liberal form of nationalism that sets universal but non-absolute principles of self-determination. The case is finally pressed home in relation to the relations of Scotland to the other countries of the British Isles, and an argument put for the idea of mutual independence within a Council of the Isles and the European Union.