Monday, November 10th, 12:30-1:3opm
22 Washington Square North, 1st Floor Faculty Lounge
Zoran Oklopcic, Global Fellow and constitutional scholar from Canada, will be leading an informal discussion on the popular consultation in Catalonia regarding its potential independence from Spain that is to take place on November 9. The event will be an informal lunchtime discussion to be held on Monday, November 10th at 12:30 pm in the 1st Floor Faculty Lounge at 22 Washington Square North and will be jointly sponsored by Hauser Global Law School, the Jean Monnet Center, and the International Law Society.
Please see below for a synopsis of the discussion. To RSVP, please email law.globalvisitors@nyu.edu.
The Limits of Responsiveness: Catalonian Dret a Decidir – Between Popular Constitutionalism and the Right to Self-Determination
Unlike that of Canada or Britain, the Spanish Constitution envisages Spain as an indissoluble state. A referendum on sovereignty proposed by the Catalan Regional government has recently been suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Tribunal. As part of political maneuvering following the decision, the Catalan government has nonetheless decided to proceed with “the popular consultation on the political future of Catalonia” scheduled for November 9, 2014.
As the most significant secessionist movement in the European Union, the Catalan drive for independence raises important questions for comparative and international law, as well as for constitutional theory. If modern multinational democracies such as Canada or Britain have demonstrated that they are capacious enough to be responsive even to the most radical political desires, such as secession, should Spain follow suit? If not, do the people of Catalonia have a right to self-determination under international law, and what does such right entail?
The talk will tackle these constitutional comparisons, the rhetorical innovations of Catalan secessionism, the relevance of international law, and conclude with a deeper theoretical question: how should we imagine the limits of responsiveness in a modern liberal democratic constitutional order?