Constitutional right to self-determination federative processes : how states operationalize the internal right to self-determination

Since the 1970s, Spain, Iraq, the United States, Canada, and Ethiopia have each effectively created a new constitutional right that operationalizes the internal right to self-determination within their constitutional system using a constructivist approach, which this article shall refer to as a constitutional right to self-determination. This new constitutional right confers on certain peoples with common identity markers the right to use a federative process to construct their own new sub-state with self-rule powers. A constitutional right to self-determination federative process is materially different from integrative and devolutionary federative processes because it uses a bottom-up legal process to create a new ethnically distinct sub-state. This article will compare and contrast within these constitutional systems how these federative processes determines: (a) who are the new sub-state’s people, (b) what is new the sub-state’s jurisdiction, (c) which powers will the new sub-state have, and (d) how is the new sub-state created. By these means, constitutional right to self-determination federative processes can be broadly conceptualized, contextualized, and eventually be made translatable to a diverse range of states.