Comparing Apples and Apples: Ten Years of Constitutional Experience in Bhutan, India and the United States

Abstract

Observers of the first ten years of Bhutan’s constitutional experience too often fall into the trap of comparing it to its 21st century contemporaries, many of which have decades’ more experience in constitutional order. The author instead compares the first ten years of Bhutan’s constitutional democratic monarchy (2008-18) with those of the United States (1781-1791) and India (1949-1959), in hopes of establishing a better benchmark.

This paper was originally published in the Bhutan Law Review, Volume X, 2018. Issued by the Bhutan National Legal Institute (BNLI).

Keywords: Bhutan, India, United States, constitution, constitutional democratic monarchy