The purpose of this book is to evaluate the foreign policy objectives of the European Union against the background of a comparative study of foreign policy provisions in the constitutions of a substantial number of States. All the Member States of the Union are covered together with a representative cross-section of other States and three of them—India, Germany and France—are described in some detail. The topic is a fascinating one, and the wealth of information set out shows that against the background of highly variable constitutions and procedures for adopting and implementing international obligations and projecting national values abroad there is a large measure of overlap among national foreign policy aspirations. Promotion of international peace and security, maintenance of just relations among nations, fostering respect for international law and for human rights and encouraging settlement of international disputes by arbitration are all so frequently articulated that they show the emergence of what Larik calls ‘a common vocabulary for foreign policy objectives’. A surprisingly large proportion of national constitutions have been adopted within the last 40 years, and Larik shows convincingly that the provisions on foreign policy, like others, serve a purpose of articulating national identity and aspirations rather than a justiciable method of constraining the future foreign policy of the State. This is made explicit in the Indian Constitution—where the relevant principles are not enforceable by any court but are to be applied by the State in making laws.

Against the kaleidoscope of national foreign policy objectives, Larik outlines the historical development of the foreign policy objectives of the Union from its tentative beginnings to the wide-ranging and ambitious provisions in the Lisbon Treaty, and concludes that the ‘common vocabulary’ apparent among European national constitutions has been reproduced extensively at EU level. The analysis of the European objectives is excellent but the account would benefit if it were brought out more clearly that the word ‘constitution’ has different meanings when used to describe the constitution of a State and when applied to the Union which—however special and supranational its character—remains an entity whose powers are conferred by and ultimately depend on its sovereign Member States. The distinction was much discussed in the context of the debates over the draft Constitutional Treaty for the European Union, when objectors to the Constitution claimed that the word implied statehood and others correctly pointed to the numerous international organizations operating under ‘constitutions’. An entity dependent on conferred powers must act within specified competences and sometimes with specified objectives, whereas a State has a free choice in the matter and may well respond to external threats and events—like Lord Palmerston—by simply doing ‘what may seem to be best, upon each occasion as it arises’. The Union on the other hand as its foreign powers have enlarged under successive Treaties has been given extensive constitutional objectives as well as carefully delineated competences to regulate procedures and institutional balance.

Unsurprisingly, the content and emphasis among foreign policy objectives of States is conditioned more by the historical circumstances of their adoption than by the institutional method of preparation—which may be by scholars, by judges or by the legislature. Thus the German Basic Law begins by emphasizing the will of Germany ‘to promote world peace as an equal partner in a united Europe and expressly outlaws actions to prepare for a war of aggression. The post-war constitution of Italy ‘rejects war as an instrument of aggression against the freedoms of other peoples and as a means for settling international controversies’. The strongest and most effective constraint on recourse to international armed conflict is in the constitution of Japan under which ‘the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes’. In India, on the other hand, the requirement on the State is merely to ‘endeavour’ to promote international peace and security and encourage settlement of international disputes by arbitration—and subsequent events have shown that this endeavour was not only non-justiciable but also unsuccessful, given India's conflicts with Pakistan and its limited commitment to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

For the European Union—with limited potential for disrupting world order—the prime objectives are security, the promotion of its own values and the upholding of its ‘interests’. There is no limiting of pursuit of these objectives to civilian methods or even to ethical goals, but the central objective of ‘coherence’, the requirement to help to develop as well as to apply international law and the rigorous procedural requirements before any effective action can be taken has ensured a benign outcome.

This is an intensely thought-provoking book, and the analysis of a wide range of theories and literature is rigorous and impressive. The reader is, however, left with a desire for more thorough exploration of how the wide range of constitutional objectives at both national and EU level have actually been applied in order to condition foreign policy actions and in judicial challenges. More detail on national cases—such as the 2011 judgment of the Indian Supreme Court (at 62)—would help the reader to assess the difference made to the outcome by the invocation of India's commitment to international peace. Some of the cases at European level leave the impression that challenges to a proposed external action are motivated more by a power struggle between the institutions of the European Union than by any perception that they may contravene fundamental constitutional objectives. The extensive groundwork contained in this comparative research may pave the way for rigorous testing of the relevance of the shared foreign policy objectives to the actions—both successful and unsuccessful—which the Union has undertaken under the constitutional powers it now has to conduct a common foreign policy.

It must also be recalled that constitutional provisions may inhibit rational change—the prohibition in the Japanese constitution of recourse to war and the US constitutional guarantee of the right of the citizen ‘to keep and bear arms’ are examples of current concern. There may be little correlation between uplifting foreign policy objectives in a national or international constitution and mayhem or carnage on the ground. The Constitution of South Sudan whose splendid foreign policy ambitions are quoted at length in the penultimate page of Larik's book is a dismal reminder of this.