Placing Normative Power Europe in a Global Context

The possibilities of international law received a severe blow by the terrorist attacks in 2001 and the ensuing conflicts over the decision to intervene in Iraq. The immediate effect is reflected by institutional and policy changes. The long-term effect consists in changing sets of norms and institutions that have been regulating the interplay between politics and law on the global scale, so far. Both reframe the context of responses to terrorist threats. The article considers the debates on the future of international law and the potential for a normative power Europe as related. It places the concept of ‘normative power Europe’ in the global context of emerging constitutional quality (section 2), points out the three main theses in the debate on the future of international law (section 3), addresses the conceptual bias of normative power Europe (section 4), and draws conclusions with a view to future research on the cultural validation of norms (section 5).