Chile’s Constituent Assembly Brief (July 28, 2021)
Situation
Chile's Constitutional Convention representatives have established eight commissions so far as they inch towards a new national charter. The commissions include "Human Rights, Historical Truth and Bases for Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Repetition" and "Participation and Indigenous Consultation." (LaBot Constituyente, El Mostrador)
If diversity is one of the Convention's strengths, it is also a weakness as delegates struggle to agree even to lay down the ground rules of how to proceed. (La Tercera)
There have been predictable schisms between Indigenous representatives and the right, for example, but representatives have also shown fluid alliances that factor in a desire for balance or to remain within a strict interpretation of the Convention's mandate. (LaBot Constituyente)
Human Rights Commission
The case of the Human Rights commission is telling. The commission was proposed by La Lista del Pueblo and Indigenous delegates with the goal of addressing human rights violations during the social unrest that started in October 2019, including creating a register of prisoners and the possibility of a truth commission. The Communist Party presented a separate, similarly focused proposal. But both of these were rejected, instead the Commission's mandate is more generic, though it includes "documenting information collected on the serious human rights violations committed by state agents, to be made available to the public." (LaBot Constituyente)
While some experts have voiced concern that the commission's focus exceeds delegates' mandate, human rights professor Juan René Maureira argues that the scope of human rights violations in Chile warrants a clear response by the State to victims and society "on its ethical position regarding the crimes committed in the past." (Diario U Chile)
Identity
The diverse grouping of delegates is representative "of the importance that they, and voters, have placed on identity," argues Robert Funk in Global Americans.
While many in Latin America are looking with hope at what Chile's experiment will produce, others who value the results of Chile's current model are concerned the new constitution will undermine the country's "economic success." (See for example this op-ed in The Hill.)
Environmental Charter
Among the many changes activists hope to reflect in the new Constitution, environmental concerns, particularly water, rank high. A group of eco-delegates are pushing the idea of a "Green Constitution," in which the environment could be categorized as a rights-bearing subject. (Pauta, LaBot Constituyente)
Chile is in the midst of a ten year drought, and a reform to the country's water code is under analysis by Congress. But activists say that the new constitution must establish water as public good in order for the reform to be fully implemented. (El Mostrador, see also Climate Change News)
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