ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to provide a broad overview of the recent doctrinal trend in global constitutional law to impose restrictions on the power to amend constitutions, the uses of such a doctrine and its perhaps more recent abuses. First, the two main types of limits to constitutional change – explicit and implicit unamendability – are reviewed. Next, the theory behind constitutional unamendability and its main objection are discussed. Following this, the uses of the doctrine are analysed and its recent abuses described. An unamendable provision, as Richard Albert describes it, is ‘impervious to the constitutional amendment procedures enshrined within a constitutional text and immune to constitutional change even by the most compelling legislative and popular majorities’. When constitutional amendments are deemed incompatible with values, rules, or provisions protected by constitutional unamendability, they can be declared unconstitutional and void.
