Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law

Tag: Iceland

  • Which Citizens? – Participation in the Drafting of the Icelandic Constitutional Draft of 2011

    —Ragnhildur Helgadóttir, Reykjavik University School of Law The Icelandic draft constitution of 2011 has received wide attention, including on this blog. One reason for that is the emphasis placed on public participation in the drafting process. In its (otherwise quite critical) opinion, the Venice Commission (the European Commission for Democracy through Law) wrote: The wide range…

  • Iceland: End of the Constitutional Saga?

    –Tom Ginsburg (cross-posted with Huffington Post)  In late 2008 and early 2009, thousands of Icelanders took to the streets in response to the largest banking collapse in history. What followed was a constitution-making process unprecedented in its transparency and level of public participation.

  • The Context of Iceland‘s Constitutional Revision – Will it Doom the Draft?

    – Ragnhildur Helgadóttir, Professor of Law, Reykjavík University The revision of the Icelandic constitution (see posts from Oct. 15 and 21) was an important part of the reaction to the financial crisis of 2008. Following the crash, a government had to leave office and a Parliamentary Investigative Commission handed in a black report on the…

  • Iceland referendum headed for victory

    –Tom Ginsburg With two-thirds of the votes counted, it appears that Iceland’s citizen-drafted proposal for constitutional reform is headed for victory. Roughly half of eligible voters turned out for the referendum, which asked voters to consider six different questions covering key aspects of the proposed new Constitution.  

  • A Review of Iceland’s Draft Constitution from the Comparative Constitutions Project

    –Zachary Elkins, University of Texas; Tom Ginsburg,University of Chicago;                James Melton,University College London On the heels of an extraordinarily interesting experiment in constitutional design by crowdsourcing, Iceland is headed to the polls this week to test the public’s reaction to the draft constitution.