ABSTRACT
The chapter offers constitutional proposals that acknowledge preexisting national identities while creating an enabling constitutional environment for constructing new national identities that foster the building of an inclusive nation-state and the rule of law in South Sudan. Sudan adopted its first constitution in 1956, but within a few months its operation was suspended during a military coup led by General Ibrahim Abboud in 1958. This triggered a series of constitutional and political crises that culminated in the first civil war between the North and the South. Political recognition of ethnic and cultural communities in South Sudan is not an act of constitutional charity but is a substantive step towards conflict prevention and state and nation building. The transitional constitution of the republic of south sudan, which was adopted in 2011 and replaced the interim constitution of southern sudan (ICSS), only transplanted the ICSS, which was also a transplantation of the 2005 National Interim Constitution of the Sudan.
