The basic idea of this contribution lies in building a concept of constitution given the relevance of violence in the foundations of the legal order. The author distinguishes different stages of high-scale conflicts in the configuration of a state’s constitutional system such as the violence perpetrated during state-building, the coercion displayed during the formal constitution-making process, and the use of force in imposing the constitutional principles under emergency circumstances. The link between violence and constitutional formation leads to a material concept of constitution grounded in the decision about the allocation of power. The contribution closes with a normative proposition on the exercise of constituent power which states that the legitimacy of a constitutional creation hinges on the lack of victims (the “no victims rule”) in all the stages concerning the establishment of a new constitutional structure.

Our 2020 Annual Conference was scheduled to be held at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 9-11, 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our next Annual Conference will take place from July 8-10, 2021. The conference, "ICON•S Mundo", will be held online. Details regarding the organization of the 2021 Conference will follow soon.
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