Abstract
International law is integrated into national constitutions across the world. Particularly, the convergence of national constitutions with international human rights (IHR) law has been a global trend. Asia has been underexplored in the global scholarship on constitutional convergence. This Article seeks to make both theoretical and empirical contributions by exploring three models of convergence with IHR law in seven Asian constitutions: convergence impelled by international inducement in post-war and post-conflict states (Japan and Cambodia), convergence propelled by the domestic precommitment of new democracies (South Korea and Indonesia), and convergence compelled by the international socialization of the socialist states (China, Laos, and Vietnam). Formal convergence creates the condition for several Asian constitutional courts to engage with IHR law. Convergence is not merely a top-down project. This Article additionally proposes a bottom-up theory of discursive convergence, which holds that citizens' public discourse can influence the incorporation of IHR into constitutions.
Citation
Ngoc Son Bui,
International Human Rights in Asian Constitutions,
34 Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law
207-264
(2024)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/djcil/vol34/iss2/2