Rights-Based Constitutional Review: Constitutional Courts in a Changing Landscape

'This collection is a timely survey of the role of constitutional courts in comparative perspective - it provides an excellent summary of developments in a range of jurisdictions, and locates them in a broader social and political context. Among other factors, it considers global trends toward increasing international and regional human rights protection, increased recognition of second and third generation rights, and trends toward decentralization in democratic governance. It is bound to be of broad interest to both comparative constitutional lawyers and scholars.'
- Rosalind Dixon, University of New South Wales, Australia

Constitutional review has become an essential feature of modern liberal democratic constitutionalism. In particular, constitutional review in the context of rights litigation has proved to be most challenging for the courts. By offering in-depth analyses on changes affecting constitutional design and constitutional adjudication, while also engaging with general theories of comparative constitutionalism, this book seeks to provide a heightened understanding of the constitutional and political responses to the issue of adaptability and endurance of rights-based constitutional review.

These original contributions, written by an array of distinguished experts and illustrated by the most up-to-date case law, cover Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, and include constitutional systems that are not commonly studied in comparative constitutional studies. Providing structured analyses, the editors combine studies of common law and civil law jurisdictions, centralized and decentralized systems of constitutional review, and large and small jurisdictions.

This multi-jurisdictional study will appeal to members of the judiciary, policy-makers and practitioners looking for valuable insights into the case law of a range of constitutional and supreme courts in this rapidly expanding field of constitutional adjudication. It also serves as an excellent resource for academics, scholars and advanced students in the fields of law, human rights and political science.

Contributors: J. Bell, E. Carolan, C. Chandrachud, A. Kavanagh, C. Kelly, J. Lavapuro, T. Ojanen, M.-L. Paris, P. Passaglia, A.R. Robledo, M. Rosenfeld, M. Scheinin, J. Stellios, R. Uitz, M. Verdussen, M. Zagor

Edited by John Bell, University of Cambridge, UK and Marie-Luce Paris, University College Dublin, Ireland