Addressing Economic Inequality in Constitutional Design: the Colombian Drafting Experience in 1991

Abstract

Colombia’s Constitutional Assembly enacted a constitution in 1991 whose text and application are regarded around the world as among the best examples of socioeconomic constitutionalism in the last three decades. Despite rising interest in the structural causes of economic inequality at both global and domestic levels, Colombian constitutional scholarship has not yet offered an account of the role of the original constitutional design in addressing economic inequality. In this article, I show that the drafters of the Constitution of 1991 were deeply concerned with economic inequality and considered the problem from several angles. However, they did not agree on a structural plan with coherent tools to address it and prevent forces in the executive and legislative branches from undermining that purpose. Therefore, the Colombian constitution-making process has been overestimated because, after thirty years, the Assembly’s economic egalitarian aspirations are far from being achieved, and Colombia is still among the most unequal countries on earth. Thus, the Colombian constitution-making experience provides a warning about how unclear and weak agreements in constitutional design can become an additional obstacle to overcoming economic inequality.