The Endurance of National Constitutions. By Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg and James Melton
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2011.00865-4.x |
| Date | 01 July 2011 |
| Published date | 01 July 2011 |
| Author | Yaniv Roznai |
participation, subjectivities and socialities. The collection also highlights various
challenges to human rights: its appropriation by those working in anti-human
rights directions; competition for regulatory territory from other meta-dis-
courses; the Rule of Technology; and the potential for human rights to merely
legitimate rather than truly shape governance of new technologies and support
hubris.
Nevertheless, the collection is encouraging because it shows human rights
is being made ready in order to combat these challenges and maintain a connec-
tion with, and control over, science and technology. This act of reimagining
can also be found in scholarship demonstrating that human rights is not in a
‘zero-sum’ relationshipwith dignity and risk, itself a signi¢cant move to combat-
ing claims to the contrary. New Technol ogies and Huma n Righ ts should stimulate
further research that attempts to show the continued relevance of human
rights so that it assists citizens as they attempt to shape new and innovative
technologies.
Mark Fl ear
n
Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg and James Melton, The Endurance of National
Constitutions
,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, 270 pp, pb d18.9 9.
The year 1789 marks a crucial constitutional moment in both the United States
and France. Francewas transformed by the startof the revolution and the Declara-
tion of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; in the US, the Constitution came
into e¡ect. The US Constitution has endured since then, for 222 years. During
the same period, France has had no less than15 constitutions. Constitutions have
been replacedfrequently in many other countries. An extreme example of consti-
tutional instability is the Dominican Republic, which had 33 di¡erent constitu-
tions between 1844 and 2002, an average of a new constitution every 4.78 years.
How can these phenomena be explained? Why do some constitutions last while
others fail? These are some of the main questions addressed in The Endurance of
National Constitutions.
Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg and James Melton, together with a team of
researchers, have gathered data on all national written constitutions from 1789 to
2005, with a total of 935 constitutions from more than 200 countries. The consti-
tutions are coded based on multiple characteristics, with each constitution
reviewed against an extensive surveyanalysing di¡erentcriteria for constitutional
longevity.The data allows the authors to create an empirical framework designed
to answer the thornyquestion of why some constitutions endure while others do
not.This issue is central to a constitutional order. A constitution’s primary raison
d’e
Œtre is to stabilise. Constitutions are intended to be long-lasting and to re£ect
long-term considerations. Despite this, constitutional literature has devoted
little attention to the issue of constitutional endurance, hence the importance
of this project. In addition to its importance, this is an extensive project, with a
n
School of Law,Queen’sUniversity Belfast
Reviews
647
r2011The Authors.The Modern Law Review r2011The ModernLaw Review Limited.
(2011)74(4) 631^660
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