International constitutional court: rise and fall of an international debate

Abstract

The development of an International Constitutional Court (ICoC) is an idea which received a special focus among several legal scholars worldwide. The general idea of this proposal is to create a new international public authority (IPA) with judicial powers in order to: (i) hinder local successful electoral frauds or coups d'état, and (ii) reinforce the global protection of Democracy and Human Rights. After a qualitative research based on primary sources (interviews and surveys) and secondary sources (literature review), this article examined the different ICoC proposals. We argue that the current discussion concerning the legality of this new IPA does not address legitimacy issues and, for this reason, the debate on the legal framework of an ICoC should also consider proper accountability mechanisms for international issues.