When South Korea's government published the full text of North Korea's newly revised constitution on June 6, it revealed more than a legal update. The document, passed at a Supreme People's Assembly session in March, formally ends more than seven decades of inter-Korean political convention, erases the ideological legacy of Kim Jong-un's predecessors, and for the first time writes the supreme leader's authority to use nuclear weapons directly into constitutional law.
Kim Jong-un Erases His Predecessors From North Korea's Constitution
For generations, the legitimacy of Kim family rule rested on the quasi-divine status of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. The new constitution dismantles that foundation. All references to their "achievements" have been stripped from the preamble — a section previously treated as sacrosanct — along with the constitution's long-standing designation as the "Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il Constitution." The ideological cornerstone of "Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism" is gone too, replaced by Kim Jong-un's own governing philosophy: the "People-First Principle."
The message is deliberate. After more than a decade in power, Kim Jong-un no longer needs to govern in his predecessors' name. He is positioning himself not as heir to a dynastic tradition, but as the state's founding architect in his own right.
North Korea Officially Recognises South Korea as a Separate State
Both Koreas have long maintained constitutional claims to sovereignty over the entire peninsula, treating the other as an illegal occupying force on disputed territory. The 2026 revision breaks with that framework entirely.
Kim Jong-un publicly declared at the end of 2023 that North-South relations had become "a relationship between two hostile states," and in January 2024 ordered constitutional changes to encode that position in law. The result is Article 2 — the first territorial clause in North Korean constitutional history, modelled on the formats of other sovereign states.
The article reads: "The territory of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea borders the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation to the north, and the Republic of Korea to the south, and includes the territorial waters and airspace defined by those boundaries." It further declares that "the DPRK shall never permit any violation of the abovementioned domains."
North Korea Deletes All References to Korean Reunification
Some analysts had anticipated that a new maritime clause might be used to invalidate the Northern Limit Line — the de facto maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea — and provide a pretext for military provocation. In the event, the revised constitution adopts deliberately broad language, stopping short of encoding any specific boundary disputes.
More significant is what has been removed.
The preamble and body of the new constitution have comprehensively deleted terms long associated with Korean unification: "northern half," "reunification of the fatherland," and "complete victory of socialism" no longer appear.
And where the text once read "South Chosun" — Pyongyang's traditional designation for the South — it now says "Republic of Korea." Kim Jong-un's two-state doctrine has completed its final legislative step.
How Kim Jong-un Has Consolidated Power Under the New Constitution
The revisions reshape domestic power no less dramatically. The position of Chairman of the State Affairs Commission — Kim Jong-un's current title — has been elevated above the Supreme People's Assembly, nominally the highest organ of state power, for the first time in North Korean constitutional history. The Chairman is now formally designated "head of state," with direct authority to appoint and dismiss the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly and the Premier of the Cabinet. The legislature's former power to "summon" the Chairman has been deleted, reducing it to a subordinate body.
North Korea Writes Nuclear Command Authority Into Its Constitution
The most consequential provision concerns nuclear weapons.
Article 6 states that "the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea holds command authority over nuclear forces," and that "the Chairman of the State Affairs Commission may delegate nuclear use authority to the nuclear command institution."
It is the first time North Korea has written the supreme leader's authority to use nuclear weapons into its constitution — providing an explicit legal basis for Kim Jong-un to press the nuclear button, or to authorise the military to act in his place.
The practice is exceptionally rare among the world's legal systems. Its inclusion leaves little ambiguity about what kind of state North Korea considers itself to be.
North Korea Drops Cold War Language in Bid to Look Like a Normal State
The revision also strips out welfare provisions that long served as socialist window-dressing: pledges of "free medical care" and a "tax-free nation" have both disappeared. Their absence is partly offset by the addition of "martyrs of overseas military combat operations" to the list of those entitled to state support — a telling reflection of North Korea's recent military engagements abroad.
In a notable restraint, despite Kim Jong-un's continued hostile rhetoric toward Seoul, the new constitution does not formally designate South Korea an "enemy state." An array of Cold War-era formulations have also been quietly dropped: "imperialist aggressors," "liberating the oppressed and exploited people," and "conspiracies of hostile forces at home and abroad to commit sabotage" no longer appear in the foundational law.
Could North Korea's New Constitution Open the Door to Peaceful Coexistence?
Lee Jung-chul, a professor of political science and international relations at Seoul National University, sees the overall direction as cautiously encouraging.
The deletion of the "Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il Constitution" designation is significant, he argues — as is the decision not to formally define inter-Korean relations as hostile or belligerent. Taken together, the revisions point toward a "normal state": a country whose foundational law looks like that of any other sovereign nation.
Lee goes further. By purging the constitution of its most irrational antagonistic language, he contends, Pyongyang may have — perhaps inadvertently — laid the institutional groundwork for a future of peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas.
Whether that reading proves too optimistic remains to be seen. What is beyond dispute is that Kim Jong-un has used this constitution to do three things at once: bury the political inheritance of his father and grandfather, close the legal door on reunification, and place the nuclear trigger unmistakably in his own hands. （Related： Exclusive | How Nobel Laureate Kurt Wüthrich Uses Exercise to Fuel Scientific Innovation ｜ Latest ）
