Const Law II: Constitutional Amendments in the United States and the World

• Semester: Fall 2020
• Course ID: 381C
• Credit Hours: 3
• Unique: 28230

Description

This course is taught entirely online via Zoom.

No part of a constitution is more important than the procedures we use to change it. Constitutional amendment procedures open a window into the soul of a constitution, exposing its deepest vulnerabilities and revealing its greatest strengths. This course will explore constitutional amendment procedures in the United States Constitution as the basis for our comparative study of constitutional amendment procedures around the world. Is the United States Constitution the world's most difficult to amend? Why doesn't the United States Constitution make anything unamendable, unlike other countries in the world, which protect human dignity, federalism, and secularism against amendment? What does the amendment process in the United States suggest about the most important constitutional values in this country? We will learn about amendment practices in many countries, including Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Honduras, India, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, among several others. Evaluation will be based on a term paper.