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Constitutional Amendments (constitutional + amendment)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Law and Criminology	50%

Selected Abstracts

The age-21 minimum legal drinking age: a case study linking past and current debates

ADDICTION, Issue 12 2009
Traci L. Toomey
ABSTRACT Background The minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) in the United States (U.S.) has raised debate over the past several decades. During the 1970s many states lowered their MLDAs from age 21 to 18, 19, or 20. However, as a result of studies showing that these lower MLDAs were associated with increases in traffic crashes, state-level movements began in the later1970s to return MLDAs to age 21. A new movement has arisen to again lower the MLDA in the U.S. Aim The aim is to discuss this current MLDA debate within the context of the long history of the U.S. MLDA. Methods A search of research articles, websites, and newspaper articles was conducted to identify key messages and influences related to the MLDA movements. Results The complexity of state movements to change their MLDAs is illustrated by the Michigan experience, where strong political forces on both sides of the issue were involved, resulting in the MLDA returning to 21. Because the 21st Constitutional amendment prevents the federal government from mandating a MLDA for all states, a federal policy was proposed to provide incentives for all states to implement age-21 MLDAs. Due largely to strong research evidence, the National Minimum Legal Drinking Age Act was enacted in 1984, stipulating that states set their MLDA to 21 or face loss of federal highway funds. By 1988, all states had an age-21 MLDA. Conclusion Any current debate about the MLDA should be informed by the historical context of this policy and the available research. [source]

Citizenship and the Biopolitics of Post-nationalist Ireland

JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2005
John A. Harrington
In June 2004 voters in the Republic of Ireland endorsed a constitutional amendment to deprive children born on the island of Ireland of their previously automatic right to Irish citizenship. This change came amid increasing immigration and so-called ,baby tourism', whereby non-national mothers were alleged to be coming to Ireland to give birth for the sole purpose of bestowing Irish citizenship on their children. This article sets the referendum in its historical and contemporary context. Along with recent jurisprudence of the Irish Supreme Court, the amendment betokens a distinctive biopolitics orchestrated according to neo-liberal themes consonant with Ireland's membership of the European Union and its foreign direct investment strategy. As such, the amendment confirms the shift in Irish constitutional history from autarkic nationalism to cosmopolitan post-nationalism embodied in the Belfast Agreement of 1998. [source]

Dispute resolution in federal systems

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 167 2001
Michael Crommelin
This article deals selectively with four broad approaches to conflict management in federal systems of government: formal dispute resolution,informal dispute resolution, dispute avoidance, and popular dispute resolution. Courts undertake the task of formal dispute resolution through judicial review: issues of current significance include judicial concepts of federalism, the reference jurisdiction, Scottish devolution, and supranational federalism and the European Court of Justice. Examples of informal dispute resolution are few. The South African Constitution includes a provision, requiring parties to an intergovernmental dispute to exhaust all other remedies before resorting to litigation. The dispute resolution process contained in chapter 20 of the North American Free Trade Agreement may stimulate experimentation with similar models in federal systems. Dispute avoidance techniques are many and varied; they include the drafting of constitutional instruments and the use of intergovernmental forums within and outside the constitutional framework. The electoral process may be employed in federal systems to determine the fate of governments, specific legislative measures and proposed constitutional amendments. Each federal society has its own culture of conflict management, which exerts a subtle but significant influence on the operation of, and the relationship among, dispute resolution systems. [source]

The Constitutional State and its Reform Requirements

RATIO JURIS, Issue 1 2000
Peter Häberle
In the first part, the author characterizes the fundamental contents (principles) of the constitutional state. In the second part, he describes the necessary reforms both at the level of the national constitutional state and at the global and humanity level. In the third part, he examines the methods and procedures of reform in the constitutional state, analysing: a) constitutional formation or complete revision; b) constitutional amendments or partial revision; c) parliamentary constitutional legislation; d) constitutional interpretation; e) government and non-governmental "outlook" commissions. [source]