Chaihark Hahm, born in Seoul, Korea, in 1963. S.J.D. from Harvard University. Associate Professor at Yonsei University.
Henry G. Schermers Fellow (1 September 2009 – 30 June 2010)
TOWARDS A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF CONSTITUTIONAL IDENTITY IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION
During my stay at NIAS, I finished two articles. One critically reviewed the theoretical underpinnings of conventional views on constitution-making and the founding of a democratic state. Using the historical cases of constitution-making in Korea and Japan following the Second World War, I argue that ‘We the People’ which purportedly ordains a constitution for its followers, is as much a creation of the constitution as its authors. More specifically, I show that for both the ‘People of Korea’ and the ‘Japanese People’, their concrete identities were formed in complex negotiations with the past, as well as through multi-faceted interaction with external forces, which accompanied the drafting process. The second article deals with the nature and role of constitutional adjudication as a means of enforcing the norm laid down by ‘We the People’. Both have been submitted for review at leading journals of constitutional and comparative law.