To this day the founding treaties of the European Union contain no legally binding bill of rights in the traditional sense protecting religion, privacy, family life, the freedom of expression, and so forth. As we all know, while the European Court of Justice initially rejected appeals relying on fundamental rights as found in national constitutions, the Court changed its position under pressure of German courts.

Rulings in the cases of OMPI, Sison and Segi – Violation of the right to a fair hearing, the duty to give reasons, and the right to judicial protection – Jurisdiction to review lists of terrorist suspects – Extension of Article 35 TEU – Preliminary rulings on common positions – Improvements of the listing procedure – New legal bases for restrictive measures under the Treaty of Lisbon – Recommendations how to reform the autonomous EU listing procedure further

Constitutional protection of social rights – Differences between European and American legal cultures – National solidarity and market relationships – New Deal and the creation of the American Welfare State – Functions of the American State – The reflection of profound political, moral and societal choices – The concept of Sozialstaat – Positive obligations and negative freedoms – European Social Model – Social services and competition rules – The concept of solidarity and the deregulatory effect of EU law – EU citizenship – Locating of social rights in market integration

Italian veto in the EU Council reversed by Berlusconi – Italian Parliament: lack of trust in other European Union member states – Italian implementing Act: in between the Framework Decision and the Italian legal order – Case-law of the Corte di Cassazione: interpretations in conformity with the Framework Decision and with the Italian constitutional order – Some reflections on consistent interpretation, the relationship between the legislature and the judiciary, and two very recent decisions of the Corte Costituzionale

Doubts about the traditional, positivistic interpretation of Montesquieu's ‘bouche de la loi’-text – Reading Montesquieu in his historical context – England and France: judge made law and parlementaire ideology – Natural law context – Lex animata, lex loquens: King versus judge – The Ciceronian and English background of the ‘bouche de la loi’ – The Fronde and les Mazarinades – George Buchanan, Sir Edward Coke and Calvin's Case

The contribution of subnational constitutions to the development of constitutional law – Subnational recognition of a diversity of fundamental rights as symbol of constitutional autonomy – Identical, less protective and more protective subnational rights – Diversity in sources, uniformity in application – Positive rights and the provision of public goods – federal courts and state courts: federal chemistry and constitutional laboratories

Federalism as a consequence of local/cultural self-determination – Degree of autonomous human rights protection on a subnational level – Analysis in terms of two dimensions: subnational constitutionalism and contestatory federalism – Contrast between US and European models – Opposition between contestatory federalism and subsidiarity – Rise of international human rights protection diminishes importance of subnational human rights protection

Read carefully: A Community national leaves his or her home state (the ‘first country’) to work in a host member state (the ‘second country’). While in the second country, he or she exercises the right to family reunification with a spouse, partner or dependent who is not a national of any EU or EEA member state (a ‘third-country’ national). When the Community national returns to the first country together with the family member, what determines the family member's right of residence in the first country? Community law – in which case the Community national would continue to enjoy the right of family reunification as before? Or the national immigration law of the first country, which could potentially dictate more restrictive conditions for family reunification?

It is never too late. In two decisions handed down at the end of October 2007, the Italian Constitutional Court seems finally to have begun to take seriously one of the Italian Constitution's fundamental principles: the openness to international law which is embodied in Articles 10, 11 and – the provision chosen by the Constitutional Court in the judgments being examined – 117, paragraph 1 of the Constitution, which was added by the constitutional revision of 2001. In particular, the two decisions focus on the relationship between the Italian constitutional legal order and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.