Literature Review: Constitution-Drafting among Burma's Democracy Movement

Citation: David C. Williams, Lessons of Experience in the Enterprise of Constitutional Design: Constitutionalism Before Constitutions: Burma's Struggle to Build a New Order, 87 Tex. L. Rev. 1657 (June 2009)

I've been reading quite a bit recently about the various Burmese constitutions (1947, 1974, and 2008). However, I almost missed the democracy movement's alternative constitution-drafting process. David C. Williams, Professor at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law and head of the Center for Constitutional Democracy, has been working with ethnic minority groups and pro-democracy leaders for over a decade in order to help them draft alternative constitutions. As anybody who follows Burma knows, the Burmese military would never accept such documents. Indeed, as Williams acknowledges, these "constitutions" will never become legally binding documents. So why should Burmese politicians go through such constitutional exercises?