Secession and the Prevalence of Both Militant Democracy and Eternity Clauses Worldwide

---

To access the full article, please click here

I further developed these ideas in the context of secession in a subsequent project. The prevalent approach suggests that constitutions are silent about secession and may even implicitly allow it. But several projects of mine prove that the overwhelming majority of countries vigorously protect territorial integrity through use of unconventional, extreme methods, some of which are typically identified with the authoritarian toolkit. Constitutions use double-speak, differentiate between “the law on the books” and “the law as practiced,” ban secessionist parties, and use eternity clauses to protect territorial integrity from constitutional amendments. I have also provided strategic and normative explanations for constitutions’ treatment of secession. In the process, I showed that popular sovereignty (“we the people”) is a territorial concept.

Suggested citation:

Secession and the Prevalence of Both Militant Democracy and Eternity Clauses Worldwide, 40 Cardozo Law Review 905, 905-990 (2018).