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53 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol. 751 (2020-2021)

handle is hein.journals/nyuilp53 and id is 763 raw text is: RUSSIA'S BIG-BANG CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS Bui NGOC SON* I. INTRODUCTION .................................. 752 II. BIG-BANG CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS ........ 755 III. RUssIA's BIG-BANG CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS ................................... 758 A. A Window of Opportunity ..................... 758 B. The Speedy Pace.............................. 762 1. Amendment Rules ........................ 762 2. Amendment Practice ...................... 764 C. The Large-Scale .............................. 769 1. Presidential Term Limit Evasion: The Blank Slate Theory Through Constitutional Amendments ............................. 769 2. Superpresidentialism ...................... 775 3. Nationalism ............................. 778 4. W elfarism ................................ 781 IV. CONCLUSION .................................... 783 On July 1, 2020, Russians approved the amendments to Russia's 1993 Constitution in a national vote. Drawing from comparative scholarship on constitutional change and insights from comparative political studies, this article argues that Russia's 2020 constitutional amendments can be understood as big-bang constitutional amendments- amendments that rapidly introduce large-scale change to the existing constitution all at once. The political elites' uncertainty regarding their continued influence and the centralization of power combined to create a window for the passage of these amendments. The amendments were all enacted together, in a short time-frame, thanks to legislative supremacy and political conditions. The amendments are also substantial: they changed nearly one-third of the original Constitution and deal with a wide-range of international and domestic issues. They annul presidential term limits; significantly increase presidential power over the legislative, executive, and judicial bodies; prioritize national law over international law; constitutionalize Russian as the state-forming language, faith in one * Associate Professor of Asian Law, University of Oxford Faculty of Law; PhD, The University of Hong Kong; Visiting Researcher, Harvard Law School (2012); Scholar of Study of the United States Institutes- American Politics and Political Thought, University of Massachusetts' Donahue Insti- tute (2008). 751 Imaged with Permission of N.Y.U. Journal of International Law and Politics

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