This chapter assesses the legal foundations that supported the shift away from militarized constitutions after 1945 and argues that constitution making in different imperial domains (metropolitan and colonial) had crucial significance in this regard. On one hand, it shows how military constitutionalism persisted in many regions after World War II. Yet it explains how after 1945 some constitutions were built on premises that combined national law and international law (human rights law and humanitarian law), and these norms were galvanized to form a more reliable basis for democratic constitutionalism. The chapter proposes a theory of world law to explain this, stating that democracy was consolidated after 1945 as governments conferred more secure legal form on rights first obtained through military bargains. This was achieved through the use of international law to separate constitutional rights from militarism. The chapter examines cases in Germany, Japan, Kenya, Algeria and South Africa to identify these processes. It also discusses other cases, especially in post-1958 South America, where these processes were not effected.

We examine the debate around the creation, in the near term, of a World Parliamentary Assembly (WPA), a body intended to enhance the democratic character of the UN. Representing the interests of the global citizenry, a WPA could bring fresh perspectives on a broad array of unresolved global problems and become an effective catalyst for advancing processes of reform and transformation at the United Nations itself, playing a role in reinforcing democratic tendencies in the world, and fostering a new planetary ethos of an interdependent global community. Taking the evolution of the European Parliament as a model, several pathways to the setting up of a WPA are discussed, arguing that it would not be essential to have the consent of all states to get it launched. In time, as the WPA gained democratic legitimacy, it could be integrated into the international constitutional order, attached as an advisory body to the General Assembly. If UN Charter amendments enabling a system of weighted voting in the General Assembly are a longer-term goal, a WPA with extensive advisory powers would be a sensible preparatory step for the eventual emergence of a General Assembly with legislative powers.