ABSTRACT

The Integration through Law (ITL) project highlighted the central role of positive law in European integration as an alternative way of managing international relations to traditional purely political methods such as balance of power politics. Law in this context provided reasons for action based on its own authority and not political preferences or strategic interests. Perhaps one of the most well-known aspects of the ITL project was its characterization of the role of law in the process of integration. In positing law as the object of integration, the ITL project countenanced the 'problems created by the interaction of several initially distinct legal systems under the umbrella of a central authority'. Constitutional pluralism is a reasonably broad church which theorizes the rival claims to ultimate authority between European Union (EU) law and national constitutional law.