Rights
1986 Constitution with Falekaupule authority and climate statehood
A Westminster constitution from 1986, revised in 2023, notable for expressly subordinating some individual rights to Tuvaluan values and community, and for a 2023 amendment addressing statehood against sea-level rise.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — A unitary state of nine islands. The Falekaupule Act devolves substantial authority to traditional island assemblies, which exercise real local government power.
Governing law
- Constitution of Tuvalu 1986, pt. II
- Constitution of Tuvalu (Amendment) Act 2023
- Falekaupule Act 1997
- Laws of Tuvalu Act 1987
In practice
Tuvalu's constitution is unusual in stating in its own preamble and principles that individual rights are to be exercised with regard to Tuvaluan values, community and custom — an express communitarian qualification rather than the individualist framing of most rights instruments, and courts have engaged with it in freedom-of-religion cases concerning island-level restrictions on new denominations. The 2023 constitutional revision declared that Tuvalu's statehood and maritime zones endure notwithstanding the effects of climate change and sea-level rise, which is a genuinely novel constitutional provision. The Falekaupule, traditional assemblies of elders, hold devolved statutory power, so local custom operates through a formal legal channel.