Nonconstitutional Amendments

Abstract

The constitutional states of the world exhibit three models of constitutional amendment. Their amendment practices offer a window into much more than simply how these constitutional states revise their respective constitutions. Each of these three models of constitutional amendment provides a blueprint for answering fundamental questions about sovereignty and constitutional legitimacy. Insofar as constitutional amendment procedures strike at the very core of what it means to be a people joining together to define and redefine itself, and to shape and reshape the apparatus of the state, it would be myopic to interpret constitutional amendment procedures without assessing their larger theoretical significance. In this Article, I probe the connection between the theories of constitutional change and the principles of constitutionalism that guide constitutional states.