Sub-national Constitutional Law in Argentina: Considerations on the nature and scope of provincial constitutions

Abstract

Sub-national constitutional law constitutes a fundamental chapter of federal theory that, despite its diversity and richness, has been little explored. Recently, n all federal countries of the world, sub-national constitutional law and its importance in the constitutional order are being (re)discovered. The main aim of this paper is to study the delimitation of the sub-national constitutional space, through the bases and limits placed on local constituent power by the Argentine federal constitution. Another aim is to unravel the foundations of Argentine sub-national constitutional law, through analysing the principle of constitutional autonomy, the distribution of powers between levels of government and the co-sovereignty theory. The article concludes with reflections on Argentina’s "provincial margin of appreciation", and on the advantages and innovations of sub-national constitutional law.