Core Elements: Devolving Powers in Constitutions

This document is part of a series of papers produced by PILPG experts seeking to provide legal counsel to the Iraqi government during the Constitutional Review Process in 2007. The purpose of this memorandum is to explain the methods by which states allocate powers between the central government and the provincial governments in constitutions. It presents four main approaches, when: (1) specific powers are allocated to the provincial governments and remaining unnamed powers are reserved for the central government (2) specific powers are allocated to the central government and the remaining unnamed powers are reserved for the provincial governments (3) specific powers of each level of government are explicitly defined and there are no reserved powers or (4) specific powers are allocated to neither the central nor the provincial governments. The annex provides examples of specific constitutional frameworks regarding the different modalities of distribution of powers.