This article studies the process of constitution-making in Jammu and Kashmir as a hegemonic process dominated by, and an ideological reflection of, the dominant political party of Jammu and Kashmir, the National Conference led by the popular leader Sheikh Abdullah. The Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir emerged as an outcome of their ideas. Though the process itself was punctuated by the exclusionary violence against diverse communities present in the state at that time, very little attention has been paid to the idea of a constitution as an exclusivist text that embeds ‘foundational violence’ within it, and that eliminates dissenting groups and prevents the inclusion of plural conceptions of politics by actualizing a monopolistic discourse in favour of the dominant party. This article locates the violence that went into constitution-making and further employs hermeneutical interpretation of the Constituent Assembly Debates of Jammu and Kashmir to locate the differing viewpoints that existed in the State Constituent Assembly. It also takes the surrounding political and ideological context into account. In doing so, it constructs an alternative and ‘unofficial’ version of the constitution-making process, which helps challenge the dominant historical narrative that the constitution-making in Jammu and Kashmir was a successful experiment in Indian federal democracy.

The United Nations treaty bodies were established to monitor the implementation of human rights by states parties. Through ‘General Comments’ – legally non-binding clarifications of treaty obligations – they have also influenced the development of international human rights law – for example, on the right to life and climate impacts. We address this phenomenon by establishing a twofold argument. First, we argue that General Comments are used by the committees to informally shape international law. They deliberately act as human rights law-makers, knowing that international institutions, organizations and professionals in their network will subsequently refer to such instruments. Second, we argue that treaty bodies not only rely on their network once they have adopted their outcome, but the experts’ personal networks also shape the drafting process of General Comments. We develop and illustrate an analytical framework with two case studies of General Comments on the human right to water and the torture prohibition. The analysis demonstrates the need for external knowledge of both technical and legal aspects of the norms being interpreted. By addressing pressing human rights challenges, expert committees can shape the law in times of stagnation and resist contestation even from powerful states.

This article addresses the problématique of giving voice to homegrown traditions of constitutionalism in individual African countries. The scholarly discussion is combined with an applied concern about whether this could instil a wider grassroots embrace of the country’s constitution, thereby consolidating constitutionalism and ensuring longevity. The investigation is carried through the lens of two sub-categories of the concept of constitutional identity: a representative one that reflects a country’s particular political, social and cultural makeup, and an aspirational one that sets goals and ideals. The challenge, in both scholarly and applied terms, is how to ensure that a constitution instils a sense of public ownership by becoming more representative of a country’s underlying makeup while also giving voice to modern aspirations to protect and promote individual human rights, and in doing so, also becoming self-sustaining as the foundational basic law guiding future generations. Attention is paid not only to the forms of constitutions but also to their function in both reaching ideals (in the positive sense of success) and staving off pitfalls (in the negative sense of success). The article also discusses whether these are best achieved through gradual terms over time or through the sudden big bang of mega reforms.

The constitutional design of Bangladesh is characterized by an ambivalent choice: it aspires to establish a republican yet a Bengalee state by putting itself in the conflicting terrain within the demos–ethnos binary. This article aims to examine the implication of this problematic choice along all three axes of the constitution’s elemental parts: its identity, rights and structure. While the identity element of the Bangladesh Constitution embodies the ethno-nationalist vision of the Bengalee state that transforms demos into ethnos, its rights and structural aspects reflect its republican promise to transform ethnos into demos. Contemporary scholarship seeks to confront the exclusionary dimension of the ethno-nationalistic choice in Bangladesh but ends up accepting ethnos as a politically superior value. Such an approach brings us to the politics of difference and, with that, undermines the integrationist potential of the republican constitution. In response, this article defends the republican promise of the Bangladesh Constitution while arguing that what we need in Bangladesh is the ‘de-ethnicization’ of the republic, one that can be achieved by transforming ethnos into demos and not the other way around.

Collective labour rights, including the right to organize and strike, were recognized in the principles of the International Labour Organization (ILO) as fundamental rights. Despite their importance, different countries enacted legislation that included a ban on police organization in trade unions or a ban just on police strikes. The right of police officers to organize and strike is of particular importance nowadays at a time of increased public scrutiny and large-scale protests over incidents of extra-judicial killing by police. There is a need to recognize collective rights for police officers in order to improve working conditions and organizational justice at work for them as a way of moderating officers’ perspectives of public hostility and improving their capability to carry out their duties. Another benefit of recognizing a right to organize is the union’s capacity to advance important values, including avoiding racism and violence and assuring the compliance of individual officers with the ethics and code of conduct expected from police officers. This article seeks to address the unique topic of the linkage between the collective labour rights of police officers and varieties of constitutionalism in these critical times. It introduces two potential approaches in this regard: (1) global labour constitutionalism; and (2) militaristic labour constitutionalism. The former implements international standards set by the ILO as a basis for constitutionalism while the latter emphasizes domestic issues and the need to maintain the public order and security of citizens. The article examines the possibility of applying global labour constitutionalism as a basis for recognizing collective rights for police officers.