Work Towards a (New) Definition of Peace Constitution

Current research on peace constitutions generally centers on Japan’s post-World War II pacifist constitution, specifically Article 9 where Japan renounces war, dissolves its military, and vows to work towards peace in the world. In fact, researching peace constitution (or 平和憲法 in Japanese) in books, academic journals, or on the Internet routinely returns only results about Japan and its Article 9. While a substantial body of work exists about Japan’s peace constitution, too often that body of work fails to make connections between Japan’s peace constitution and other states’ constitutions containing similar peace articles. Occasionally, the literature mentions Italy’s Article 11 or Germany’s Article 26 in connection with peace constitutions; but overall, scholars have mainly been concerned with Article 9. Yet many other countries have similar constitutional provisions, including Italy and Germany, both of which have constitutionally renounced waging aggressive wars, and Costa Rica, which has constitutionally abolished its military. Nevertheless, the peace constitutions, of these countries, along with many others’, receive even less attention from the public, academia, and political leaders than Japan’s.Because of this, contemporary knowledge of peace constitutions is not based on comprehensive surveys of states with peace constitutions, but rather on a body of research that overwhelmingly focuses on Japan’s constitution. Few studies to date, especially in English, have been written about peace constitutions beyond Japan’s, nor attempted to understand differences among thevarious kinds of peace constitution or to define peace constitutions. This paper seeks to fill the void of work on peace constitutions by thoroughly surveying state constitutions–beyond Japan’s constitution–with a critical focus on better understanding what peace constitutions are and what elements they consist of, identifying countries that have peace constitutions, and on examining how these peace constitutions and the states by which they were authored have contributed to the creation of a global culture of peace.This paper looks at nearly 100 state constitutions from around the world, and finds that peace constitutions in a total of 35 different countries explicitly establish a commitment for the state and its people to work towards creating a global culture of peace through policies and actions that seriously restrict or limit military action, war, and violent solutions to state conflicts, and instead embrace peace, international law, and human rights. This research project also offers one of the first definitions of peace constitutions. Even though past research has offered categorizations of various kinds of peace constitutions,this paper argues that a definition is necessary to understand exactly what peace constitutions are, as well as their impact on constitutional law and international relations. Lastly, this research provides one of the first extensive collections of texts of peace constitutions, allowing side-by-side comparisons of the language used to promote peace within various constitutional frameworks.This paper provides a start for a comprehensive study of peace constitutions, and it provides fresh information as well as a foundation for future, more in-depth studies on the important role of peace constitutions as a mechanism for realizing global peace