Constitutionalizing the international legal system: Trade efficiency v. sustainability

This thesis serves as a rebuttal of the ongoing constitutionalization debate within established legal scholarship and normatively argues that sustainability should guide the future structure of the international legal system. The constitutionalization process requires a paradigm to structure, orient, and govern the system as well as a fundamental supposition to guide comprehensive policy design within that system. I will contend that a sufficient paradigm for the constitutionalization of the international legal system is premised on a fundamental supposition which manifests five essential characteristics: functionality as a core foundation or operating principle; normativity; generation of consistency among the social practices of actors within the system; unity within the system's universal sphere of validity; and legitimacy which enables effectiveness of the legal system. Those who advocate constitutionalization within the WTO's existing paradigm of managerialism fail to recognize the critical flaws that hinder its functionality within an international legal context; foremost being its reliance on trade efficiency as a fundamental supposition, and its failure to protect human rights and environmental values. Drawing on scholarly literature from international law and environmental policy, this thesis will argue why trade efficiency is an inadequate fundamental supposition and it will advance sustainability as a better operating principle to structure the rights-based constitutionalization of the international legal system.