By Dwyer Arce*
Since Congress granted the Virgin Islands the authority to adopt a constitution in 1978, several drafts have been proposed. Each of them was rejected either by Congress or the voters in the Virgin Islands. In January 2025, the delegates to the Sixth Constitutional Convention of the Virgin Islands will convene to try again—and hopefully succeed where their predecessors did not.
This Article examines some of the reasons for the inability of the previous constitutional conventions to adopt a constitution and attempts to provide a roadmap for the success of the Sixth Constitutional Convention. This includes the full text of a proposed constitution for consideration by the Sixth Constitutional Convention. This Article advocates for the adoption of this proposed constitution, creating the Commonwealth of the Virgin Islands, a political entity in the model of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The concept of a “Commonwealth” as applied to the governments of America’s territories brings with it a long legal history with well-developed legal principles. This will afford the Virgin Islands a level of internal control and autonomy never seen in a century under the American flag.
The efforts to adopt a constitution for the Virgin Islands, and the continuing legal complexities that accompany its status as a territory, highlights perhaps the most significant hinderance in developing Virgin Islands law—the absence of a law school in the Territory. This Article concludes by examining the negative consequences of the lack of legal education in the Virgin Islands and advocates for the creation of the University of the Virgin Islands School of Law to facilitate the development of constitutional law in the Commonwealth of the Virgin Islands.