International IDEA organized a timely international workshop on Constitution Building, 29-31 July 2007 in Quito, just as Ecuador embarks on a constitutional reform process. At the same time Bolivia’s constituent assembly is faced with the Half Moon region’s call for independence; and President Chavez of Venezuela has just announced a referendum seeking to amend the constitution to allow presidential re-election.
From the left: Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador Maria Fernanda Espinoza, President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, Secretary General of OAS José Miguel Insulza and Head of International IDEA's Andean Programme Rafael Roncagliolo. Photo: Hilton Colón Hotel
The following day, on 1 August 2007, International IDEA, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), jointly organized a one-day seminar – specifically targeting Ecuadorians – to deal with lessons of other countries in the region and throughout the world. President Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Secretary-General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, opened the seminar which was also attended by key figures including the Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maria Fernanda Espinoza, other ministers, parliamentarians, former presidential candidates and political leaders from the Andean countries.
Both events encouraged critical thinking about what can be achieved through constitutional reform and why Latin America has turned to such constitutional process with such enthusiasm so regularly (27 constitutions in Venezuela).
The workshop introduced perspectives from South Africa and Eritrea to enrich the experiences of constitutional processes in Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile.
“Constitution building used to be merely about writing a document and was primarily for lawyers: you could simply put five lawyers in a room and they would draft you a fine constitution”, said Kirsti Samuels, International IDEA’s Senior Programme Manager for Constitution-Building Processes. “We have gone a long way from that: constitution building is now increasingly recognized as negotiated social contract, where the process by which the constitution is made is as important as the provisions in the constitution.”
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador Maria Fernanda Espinoza, President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, Secretary General of OAS José Miguel Insulza, International IDEA’s Senior Programme Manager for Constitution-Building Processes Kirsti Sammuels and OAS' Deputy Secretary of Political Affairs Victor Rico. Photo: Hilton Colón Hotel
Daniel Zovatto, International IDEA’s Regional Director for Latin America noted that “In the light of what has been happening in Latin America, we need to reanalyze our frameworks for understanding democracy, particularly political parties, an essential building block for democratic governance.”
Experts addressed the role of process in constitution building, presidential structures, decentralization, and the failure of implementation. An interesting discussion focused on the role and impact of economic provisions placed in a constitution: e.g. budget approval, central bank, natural resource sharing, nationalization and privatization. These issues are all the more important in the Latin American context as much of the political debate turns on the failure of the Washington consensus and what economic models should be adopted. (The current Ecuadorian Constitution, for example, includes a provision that pre-allocates 70 per cent of the budget.) There was also intense discussion on the role of dialogue, leadership and consensus building in creating conditions for transformative constitution building.
The Seminar focused on the key challenges for the Ecuadorian constitutional process: a lack of consensus, weak inclusion, weak participation, and unwillingness to compromise.
The workshop and the seminar together set the foundation for a network of constitution building experts in Latin America.
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