De normerende kracht van de Grondwet hangt mede af van de versterking van de symbolische werking daarvan. De Staatscommissie Grondwet heeft hiervoor helaas geen oog. De auteurs komen daarom met enkele aanvullingen op het advies van de Staatscommissie: in navolging van internationale mensenrechtenverdragen kan een preambule verwoorden dat de verwerkelijking van onze rechten en vrijheden niet alleen een zaak is van de overheid, maar ook van de samenleving. Het opnemen van een antimisbruikbepaling in de Grondwet geeft richting hoe met negatief gebruik van grondrechten in rechtsstatelijke zin om te gaan.

Tegen de achtergrond van ernstige mensenrechtenschendingen van toeleveranciers in ontwikkelingslanden en sterk groeiende economieën, zoals China en India, stellen steeds meer ondernemingen supplier codes of conduct agreements (gedragsregels voor hun leveranciers in overeenkomsten) op als zelfregulerende mechanismen die mensenrechtenschendingen zouden moeten tegengaan in een internationale context waarin ondernemingen niet door de internationale gemeenschap of gastlanden aansprakelijk gehouden worden. De achtergrond van het opstellen van de codes en daarmee de relevantie van het onderwerp worden kort in de inleiding besproken. Vervolgens wordt aangegeven wat de inhoud van deze gedragscodes is en hoe de verschillende codes zich tot elkaar verhouden in een context van een proliferatie van gedragscodes. Ondanks de diversiteit van codes is een proces van standaardisering zichtbaar, zodat enige algemene opmerkingen mogelijk zijn. Daarna wordt de vraag behandeld wat de juridische impact van de codes kan zijn, enerzijds door hun effect op de relatie tussen de contractspartijen en op de positie van werknemers in ontwikkelingslanden aan de hand van verschillende situatieschetsen te toetsen, en anderzijds door de status van de codes onder Nederlands recht te beoordelen. Afsluitend volgt een aantal slotopmerkingen over mogelijke (toekomstige) implicaties en hoe supplier codes of conduct agreements passen in ontwikkelingen van transnationaal privaatrecht, constitutionalisering van privaatrecht, zelfregulering, en aansprakelijkheid in een web van relaties.

Globalization has generated an increasing necessity of having to litigate in foreign courts and to enforce judgment in other countries. The diversity of procedural regimes represents an important obstacle for an efficient access to justice, which triggered a debate on the need for harmonization of civil procedure. These topics were explored in the conference organized by Dr. Xandra Kramer and Prof. dr. C.H. (Remco ) van Rhee on 17-18 June, 2010, under the auspices of Erasmus University Rotterdam. The instant conference report summarizes the arguments on the future of procedural harmonization in Europe, which seem to favor a horizontal approach to harmonization.

This reply to critics reinforces and further develops a number of conclusions of the original paper. First, it answers the charge that it is biased in its discussion of the relative standing of constitutionalism and democracy today, tending to take the authority of the former for granted and concentrating its critical attention unduly on the incompleteness of democracy, by arguing that contemporary constitutionalism is deeply dependent upon democracy. Secondly, it reiterates and extends the claim of the original paper that the idea and practice of democracy is unable to supply its own resources in the development of just forms of political organization. Thirdly, it defends its key understanding of the overall relationship between democracy and constitutionalism as a ‘double relationship’, involving both mutual support and mutual tension. A fourth and last point is concerned to demonstrate how the deeper philosophical concerns raised by the author about the shifting relationship between democracy and constitutionalism and the conceptual reframing they prompt are important not just as an explanatory and evaluative window on an evolving configuration of political relations but also as an expression of that evolution, and to indicate how this new conceptual frame might condition how we approach the question of a democracy-sensitive institutional architecture for the global age.

The author notes that the growth of restorative justice practices seems to be hampered by the consequences of the effective socialization into the ‘penal equation’ that presents punishment as the necessary consequence of criminal offending. Upbringing in a different conflict-culture may be a fundamental condition for creating more room for restorative justice in the formal sphere of criminal justice. The need for a different socialization is also noted and discussed in the movement for human rights and has resulted in an Action Plan for human rights education of UNESCO in 2005. A satisfactory implementation of this action plan seems to be absent in the Netherlands today and methods of human rights education do not refer at all to the potentials of restorative practices such as peer mediation in schools. On the other hand, authors in restorative justice do not often refer to human rights and how they are promoted. The author claims that it is plausible that making ample room for peer mediation and conferencing in schools can be an effective way, not only to address offending conduct that often implies a breach of basic human rights – the most basic values therein being human dignity and equality – but also to make new generations aware of the meaning of human rights in their daily interactions and the qualities of their own social life.

In this paper the author argues that, despite the apparently technical nature of questions of effectiveness, in fact any considered and critical analysis of the empirical evidence about desistance, rehabilitation and ‘what works?’ compel us to consider the moral character and context of criminal justice interventions.