Constitutional History and Constitutional Migration: Nepal

This chapter examines the uneasy relationship between indigenous constitutionalism and global norms in the specific jurisdictional context of Nepal, which is unusual within South Asia for having escaped colonialism and having a wealth of uninterrupted local tradition and custom on which to construct its constitutional system. This unusual level of historical continuity in the process of nation-building has complicated the construction of constitutional identity, as demonstrated by the fraught historical relationship between the Shah-centered “national monarchy” and democracy, the enduring and controversial position of Hinduism in the constitutional framework, and the patterns of legal discrimination on the basis of identity that persist in the new 2015 constitution.