Today, concepts of constitutionalism are widely used in international legal scholarship, both to describe and to promote changes in the international legal order in support of the rule of law, the protection of human rights and other common values of the international community. Against this background, the present article deals with a question so far addressed only cursorily — the “writtenness” of international constitutional law. Can we assume the existence of an “unwritten” international constitution, or does the very concept of a constitution in the modern sense require that a constitution is laid down in written form? The article discusses the importance of “writtenness” in modern constitutionalism and addresses the “English exception”, that is the absence, in the United Kingdom, of a document called “the constitution”. The paper concludes with a plea for taking the constitutional character of the UN Charter more seriously, arguing that the idea of an unwritten constitution of the international community does not provide a viable alternative.

中文翻译：

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国际宪法：成文的还是不成文的？

今天，宪政的概念被广泛用于国际法律研究，既描述又促进国际法律秩序的变化，以支持法治、保护人权和国际社会的其他共同价值观。在此背景下，本文将讨论一个迄今为止仅粗略解决的问题——国际宪法的“成文性”。我们是否可以假设存在“不成文的”国际宪法，或者现代意义上的宪法概念本身是否要求以书面形式制定宪法？这篇文章讨论了“书面”在现代宪政中的重要性，并解决了“英国例外”，即在英国缺乏名为“宪法”的文件。