Icelandic Constitutional Reform: People, Processes, Politics

This collection documents, analyses, and reflects on the Icelandic constitutional reform between 2009 and 2017. It offers a unique insight into this process by providing first-hand accounts of its different stages and core issues. Its 12 substantive chapters are written by the main actors in the reform, including the Chair of the Constitutional Council that drafted the 2011 Proposal for a New Constitution.

Part I opens with an address by the President of the Republic and positions the constitutional reform in its full complexity and longer-term perspective, going beyond the frequent portrayal of that process in international discussion as being solely a result of the 2008 financial crisis. Part II offers a nuanced and contextualised reflection on Iceland’s innovative approach to consultation and drafting involving lay participants, including its twenty-first-century digital take on ‘the people,’ which attracted international attention as ‘crowdsourcing.’ Part III analyses the main constitutional amendment proposals, and focuses on natural resources and environmental protection, which lie at the heart of Iceland’s identity. The final part reflects on the reform’s wider significance and includes an interview with the current Prime Minister, who is now taking the reform forward.

The volume provides a basis for reflection on a groundbreaking constitutional reform in a democratic context. This long and complex process has challenged and transformed the ways in which constitutional change can be approached, and the collection is an invitation to discuss further the practical and theoretical dimensions of Iceland’s experience and their far-reaching implications.

Ágúst Þór Árnason (1954–2019) was one of the leading figures of Icelandic constitutionalism. He taught at the University of Akureyri, where he contributed to setting up the Law School, and founded the Polar Law Programme in 2008 with Professor Guðmundur Alfreðsson. He was directly involved in the initial stage of the constitutional reform process as a member of the 2010–2011 Constitutional Commission.

Catherine Dupré is Associate Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Exeter. She has studied the processes of constitutional change and reform in Hungary (post-communism and since 2010) and in the UK since 1998. She has been following Icelandic constitutional developments since 2008 when she first visited the University of Akureyri as a guest lecturer. She is the author of Importing the Law in Post-Communist Transitions: The Hungarian Constitutional Court and the Right to Human Dignity (Hart Publishing 2003) and of The Age of Dignity: Human Rights and Constitutionalism in Europe (Hart Publishing 2015).