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The Spitzenkandidaten Exercise One Year Later - The Unsung Hero A year has gone by since the last elections to the European Parliament. One significant innovation in those elections was the Spitzenkandidaten exercise. At the recent fifth edition of the "State of the Union" organized by the European University Institute I conducted a public interview with Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans. Vice President Timmermans and I reached the point where we touched on that perennial topic of the still existing deficiencies of European democracy, resulting, inter alia, in widespread indifference as expressed in the low turnout to the last European elections - 2014 scored the lowest turnout ever. Here is an edited transcript from the interview. Weiler: [...] Part of the problem is that when people go and vote for the European Parliament, they are not really being offered a real political choice (the way, for example, yesterday they were offered in the United Kingdom - Labour or Conservative.), neither as regards the policies that will be pursued nor as regards who will govern them. So the delicate question is whether the Union in its processes needs to become overtly more political? Do you think the bold, even though limited, experiment of the last elections to the European Parliament with the "Spitzenkandidaten", who delivered here in this space [the Salone dei cinquecento of the Palazzo Vecchio] one of the televised debates, should be pursued and perhaps deepened as one of the ways of addressing that problem of citizen disengagement? Timmermans: Yes, first of all ... the core of the problem also refers to one of my favourite authors, Hannah Arendt, who ... actually, if you bring back the essence of some of her writings [says] "It is not the anger of the minorities that hates us, it is the indifference of ...

Brexit: No Happy Endings I can think of no "happy ending" scenario to this unfolding saga: like malaria, it is a malaise that has nested since British accession back in 1973, and erupts from time to time, though the current eruption is potentially of fatal proportions. One cannot overstate the damage that a full-fledged exit of Britain will inflict on the EU. The importance goes well beyond the specificities of the functioning of the Union. It will survive and continue to function, even perhaps in some respects with less engineroom screeching. But as a global presence in the world, shaping and reshaping the impact will be huge, and to the detriment of the UK, the Union and the world. And internally, though not much might change on the surface, it will at the deepest spiritual level of European integration - and make no mistake, at its core the European construct has always been more than a functional, utilitarian enterprise - the damage will be equally shattering. There are many in Britain who are sceptical about the benefits of British membership. But if Brexit results from a referendum vote, it is quite likely that it will be an English exit majority, with the opposite outcome in Scotland - almost inevitably leading to a Scottish exit from the UK, a catastrophic result by all accounts for the UK.

I think it is difficult to contest that the most important state player in world affairs over the last one hundred years - and consistently so over this period - has been the United States of America. World War I - into which, to borrow from Christopher Clark's justly celebrated book, we "sleepwalked" - marks a useful starting point. It is not only the fairly important role America played in bringing WWI to an end that signals the beginning of this era, but also the no less important role it played in shaping the aftermath. Wilson's 14 points were considered at the time "idealistic" by some of the yet-to-be "Old Powers". But by dismantling the Ottoman Empire through the principle of self-determination (not at that time a universal legally binding norm) it was an early swallow to the demise, a mere generation later, of all other colonial empires and the truly decisive reshaping of the balance of power in the post-WWII world. The US played an equally cardinal role in ideating and realizing the United Nations Organization and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - two lynchpins of our current world order. That opening gambit to the American century is emblematic, in my view, of the entire Pax Americana epoch: American action in the international sphere has always had a strong dose of idealism (to be sure sometimes misguided) mixed in with the normal national self-interest which is the usual stuff of international relations, remembering that if we disaggregate the state, as we almost always should, what passes as "national interest" is often but "special interest" of certain sections in society. I know that the various schools of "realism" tend to pooh-pooh any deviation from interest analysis. Generally speaking, I find the emphasis on interest/power as an explanatory device to

In an earlier Editorial I speculated on the potential transformative effect that the 2014 elections to the European Parliament might have on the democratic fortunes of Europe. I spoke of promise and risk. So now the results are out. How should we evaluate them? I will address the three most conspicuous features of the recent elections - the anti-European vote, the continued phenomenon of absenteeism, and the innovation of the Spitzenkandidaten. The Anti-European Vote and the I-don't-Care-About-Europe Vote The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth shall be set on edge. In trying to explain the large anti-European vote (winners in France and the UK as well as some smaller Member States of the Union), much has been made of the effect of the economic crisis. Sure, it has been an important factor but it should not be used as an excuse for Europe to stick its head in the sand, ostrich-like, once more. The writing has been on the wall for a while. In 2005 the constitutional project came to a screeching halt when it was rejected in a French referendum by a margin of 55% to 45% on a turnout of 69%. The Dutch rejected the Constitution by a margin of 61% to 39% on a turnout of 62%. (The Spanish referendum which approved the Constitution by 76% to 24% had a turnout of a mere 43%, way below normal electoral practice in Spain - hardly a sign of great enthusiasm.) I think it is widely accepted that had there been more referenda (rather than Ceausescian majority votes in national parliaments) there would have been more rejections, especially if the French and Dutch peoples had spoken at the beginning of the process. It is also widely accepted that the French and Dutch rejections and the more widespread sentiment for which they were merely the clamorous expression were "a- specific": they did not reflect dissatisfaction with any concrete

When I studied international law as a student close to 40 years ago at Cambridge (East), Naulilaa was still a central case in the study of jus ad bellum. It would be found in many a "casebook" or course pack. I am pretty sure that at least some of the younger readers of this Editorial will be googling at this very moment - Naulilaa, what's that? This is significant, for it has largely vanished from casebooks and course packs, only appearing, if at all, in a footnote. What accounts for that demise? Was it superseded by other cases? Not exactly. For the truth is that it should really have been expunged from those early books, or appeared at best as a relic of the pre-Charter era - a relic with an unpleasant colonial odour. Already then it was very difficult to square Naulilaa with the Charter regime concerning the legitimate use of force. Where is the armed attack? Could that punitive raid plausibly be called self defence? One would have to engage in some serious lexical violence towards either the case or the Charter or both in order to square one with the other. Why was it there then? Inertia is one, not implausible, possibility. It takes the demise of a generation, as we learnt from Thomas Kuhn, for a paradigm truly to shift. Another intriguing possibility is that the Charter notwithstanding, it reflected an occasional but persistent state practice. What does one do in the face of an illegal use of force falling short of an armed attack? We all remember the tortured reasoning of the ICJ in Nicaragua, trying to address what might count as a legitimate response to such. To talk of punishment or reprisal, which is what Naulilaa really was about, was of �

After many "ostrich years" the European head is out of the sand: there really is a problem with the legitimacy - or rather, the perception of legitimacy - of the European construct. It is not a mere "bee in the bonnet" of some irritating academics disconnected from reality. Eurobarometer indications are at their lowest and the results of a highly respected Pew Center survey, too, show a remarkable fall in support for Europe among its citizens. Political differences on how to tackle the Euro crisis are, worryingly, both reflective and constitutive of what one may call a solidarity deficit. Even if the EU manages to make substantive and substantial strides in the construction of the much vaunted Banking Union after the German domestic elections in the autumn, it is not expected that any of the above will change significantly.

I have no intention of listing all of Antonio Cassese�s many distinctions and achievements as one of the great international lawyers of his generation. Readers of EJIL will be familiar with all of that, and Wikipedia (a decent entry) is just one click away. It is the person behind the public figure who is of interest. One has to be personal. I met Nino for the first time in 1978. I was a young(ish) Assistant at the European University Institute. He was a Professor �down town� in Florence. Relations between the faculty at the University and the EUI on the top of the hill were frosty. At best an entente cordiale. Nino would have none of that. He embraced me and within months of my arrival invited me, first to his home, and then to contribute to a major project he was directing on Parliamentary Control of Foreign Policy. I was asked by him to write the Report on the European Communities. It was a telling moment. The late Christoph Sasse, distinguished professor of EC law from Hamburg, was indignant: �a role for a Professor, not an Assistant�. Nino had no patience for that stuff either. He really did not know me all that well and was taking a risk. But it was typical of him: reaching out, welcoming, having faith, including the young, foreigners. It galvanized me. It was, too, a lesson for life. Planting trees together, ploughing fields, building houses, jointly creating something from nothing, all bring people together as little else does. I was privileged to build two houses together with Nino. One was this Journal � EJIL. Bruno (Simma) and I had no doubt that it should be Nino we should turn to as our Italian �partner�. He embraced the project with his typical �

The European construct has played a decisive role in the history of the last 60 years. It has created the framework for post-war reconstruction and has ingeniously provided the inspiration and mechanisms for a historical reconciliation between nations which hitherto had gone to war with each other � the horrors of which surpass even the worst of today's excesses � in every generation for the previous two centuries. This cannot but give inspiration and a sliver of hope in the face of our own intractable conflicts. The European Coal and Steel Community, the 60th Anniversary of which we mark this year, incorporated the Schuman Declaration and combined peace and prosperity in its blueprint, whereby peace was to breed prosperity and prosperity was to consolidate peace. It has all worked out splendidly � revisionist history notwithstanding. Europe has also been a catalyst (not more) � at times the �prize� � for the achievement and subsequent consolidation of democracy, first in Greece, Spain and Portugal, and later across Eastern Europe. It is against this most consequential background that we must assess the current circumstance of Europe. It is at a nadir which one cannot remember for many decades and which, various brave or pompous or self-serving statements notwithstanding, the Treaty of Lisbon is not about to redress. Let me mention what in my view are the three most pressing and profound manifestations of the current weakness, some would say crisis, of Europe. 1. Democracy, or rather the partial absence of which, continues to beset the Europe of 27. The manifestations of the so-called Democracy Deficit are persistent and no endless repetition of the powers of the European Parliament will remove them. In essence it is the inability of the Union to develop structures and processes which adequately replicate at the Union level even �

These are challenging times for the European Union. Internally, important, even fundamental, decisions are on the agenda as the Union struggles with the Euro crisis and its underlying economic fissures. (Mercifully, the scapegoating of the USA as an escape from facing Europe's very own breathtaking governmental and private-sector financial and fiscal irresponsibility has all but disappeared � mercifully, since facing reality unflinchingly is a necessary condition for dealing with it effectively.) What is subprime in Europe is the decisional structure of the Union: the European Politburo � President of the Commission, newly-minted President of the Council, tired-old-more-senseless-than-ever rotating Member State Presidency, recycled High Representative answerable to two bosses and thus to none � has proven at best irrelevant to the real actors in you know where (Berlin, Paris, the formidable Merkel, the erratic Sarkozy), at worst distracting � was the able President of the Council's productive moves really helped by the forced tango with his opposite number at the Commission? About a year after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, it is clear that at least some of the principal objectives intended by the new decisional structure at the top are turning out to be as ineffective (some claim laughable) as critics anticipated. Externally, the world sans-Amerique (or at least with a terribly weakened America) is not waiting for Europe either. Here, the non-handshake of Catherine Ashton and Saeed Jalili, Iran's representative to the resumed talks, was an image emblematic at many levels of the depth of the international challenges and Europe's worrying circumstance. Be that as it may, on the Institutional Deck � the orchestra plays on. The tune, it would appear, is familiar: the usual melodies associated with Commission, Council, Parliament flaps. This time, however, the harmonies might be more out of tune than usual. �

There are few legal issues which still manage to evoke civic passion in the wider population. Increasingly, and sometimes for the wrong reasons, the place of religion in our public spaces has become one of them. In the age of the internet and Google we can safely assume that all readers of this Journal will have either read the Lautsi decision of the European Court of Human Rights or have read about it, thus obviating the need for the usual preliminaries. As is known, a Chamber of the Court held that the displaying in Italian public schools of the crucifix was a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Independently of one's view of the substantive result, the decision of the Second Chamber of the ECtHR is an embarrassment. There are few long-term issues on the European agenda that are more urgent, more complex and more delicate than the way we deal with the challenging problems of State and Church, religious minorities, the questions of collective identities of Europe and within Europe, and the parameters of uniformity and diversity of our states and within our states. All these issues are encapsulated in Lautsi. All are disposed of, Oracle like, in 11 impatient and apodictic paragraphs. Compare this to the 90 pages of the Supreme Court of the UK in the recent JFS Case, to give but one example. The European Court of Human Rights is not an Oracle. It is a dialogical partner with the Member States Parties to the Convention, and the legitimacy and persuasiveness of its decisions resides both in their quality and communicative power. The ECtHR is simultaneously reflective and constitutive of the European constitutional practices and norms.

From time to time, we are asked about the relationship between EJIL and the European Society of International Law (ESIL). That relationship is simple: the Journal and the Society are two separate, but mutually supportive and complementary entities. Indeed, past and present EJIL Editors can boast, with parental pride, of having been present at the conception, as well as the birth, of the Society! From its inception, membership in ESIL has included automatic online and print subscriptions to EJIL - including very soon a tablet version.The relationship has only strengthened in recent years, with ESIL Presidents and Presidents-elect serving ex officio on the EJIL Board. It is in the spirit of that growing bond that we wholeheartedly share in ESIL's 10-year celebrations, and have invited the following Guest Editorial from its leadership. Guest Editorial: Ten Years of ESIL - Reflections Ten years ago, the European Society of International Law (ESIL) organized its Inaugural Conference in Florence. Some papers were later published in the Baltic Yearbook of International Law but, other than that, most presentations at the event have long been forgotten. Yet that event was one of those moments where the participants still proudly recall that they were there: yes, I was there in Florence when ESIL started, I was there when the seed was planted. Ten years later, although ESIL has matured rapidly with the development of a wide array of activities, the Society is still in its formative stage. There is a real sense that ESIL is beginning to realize its enormous potential for understanding and influencing international law in Europe and throughout the world. But this is not a self-propelling process. On a day-to-day basis, critical choices have to be made on the directions in which the Society can and should evolve.