DT13 | The Armed Forces in the Constitution: Experiences from OECD Countries and South America

Since November 2020, Chile has been undergoing a historic process that will lead to a new Constitution. Last January, candidates for the Constitutional Convention registered their candidacies, and in April, elections will be held for those who will have the extraordinary task of drafting the new Fundamental Charter that will determine the future of the Nation. During this process, it is expected that constructive ideas and debates will emerge to contribute to the development of the new constitutional text in all areas of interest. Among these is the matter related to security, defense, and the Armed Forces.

In this context, some voices have recently emerged proposing not to dedicate a special chapter to the topic of Defense or even to exclude such information or matters altogether, while others assert the necessity or advisability of doing so.

In this context, the AthenaLab think tank published its “Working Document No. 7” in February 2020, which addressed the incorporation of the Armed Forces and Public Order and Security and the notions of national security and defense in the political constitutions of Chile, with an emphasis on the 1925 text, as well as on the work commission processes of the current 1980 charter, in addition to the various versions of the National Defense Book and the proposed National Security Strategy. This work represents a valuable contribution to the discussion by providing information that only enhances the quality of our policy design.

This article seeks to complement that work, providing international information on this highly relevant topic for the country. Starting from the understanding of national experience, it investigates what other countries have done when drafting their constitutions and what matters related to Defense and the Armed Forces they have incorporated into their fundamental law, or if they have simply not done so.

For this task, it was necessary to define which countries would be taken as a sample, establishing as requirements, on one hand, that they be representative democracies with open economies and significant levels of development. On the other hand, the idea was to review the situation presented by our neighbors. It should be clarified that this work does not intend to conduct a comparative analysis of the constitutions, nor to qualitatively analyze the contents; rather, it aims to expose whether the nations considered, at the time of writing their political Constitution, incorporated matters associated with Defense and the Armed Forces. Additionally, observations are presented regarding which aspects are repeated or coincide in the countries addressed and how they are structured in their respective constitutions.