Constitution-Building in Political Settlement Processes: The Quest for Inclusion

In practice, peace agreements and constitutions are connected, although not in a linear or symmetrical way. Often the purpose of a peace agreement and/or (new) constitutional arrangement is to reach a new political settlement and document the commitments to it. Peace agreements often come before constitutions in the overall political settlement process, and sometimes constrain or determine the options for constitutional design; the constitution then becomes an additional instrument that enables sustainable peace. Given the link between these two documents, they often merge in the broader political settlement process into ‘constitutional peace agreements’ or ‘peace agreement constitutions’. Yet the commitment to a revised political settlement may be very thin or non-existent, in which case both the peace agreement and any 7 follow-up constitutional framework bear the heavy burden of trying to forge a new settlement capable of delivering peace. However, the academic and policy literatures on conflict resolution and constitution-building often address peace agreements and constitution-building as separate issues and processes.