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  • Cited by 58
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
March 2010
Print publication year:
2009
Online ISBN:
9780511691867

Book description

In matters of rights, constitutions tend to avoid settling controversies. With few exceptions, rights are formulated in open-ended language, seeking consensus on an abstraction without purporting to resolve the many moral-political questions implicated by rights. The resulting view has been that rights extend everywhere but are everywhere infringed by legislation seeking to resolve the very moral-political questions the constitution seeks to avoid. The Negotiable Constitution challenges this view. Arguing that underspecified rights call for greater specification, Grégoire C. N. Webber draws on limitation clauses common to most bills of rights to develop a new understanding of the relationship between rights and legislation. The legislature is situated as a key constitutional actor tasked with completing the specification of constitutional rights. In turn, because the constitutional project is incomplete with regards to rights, it is open to being re-negotiated by legislation struggling with the very moral-political questions left underdetermined at the constitutional level.

Reviews

Review of the hardback:'Webber offers an elegant and vigorous argument against what he takes to be the 'received approach' to the limitation of constitutional rights.'

Julian Rivers Source: Public Law

Review of the hardback:'Webber offers … an ambitious reconceptualization of constitutions and their rights … his most fundamental positive thesis … is that constitutional rights are actually constituted by their accompanying limitations clause … the synthesis itself is indeed novel and, I think, a real contribution to the literature on constitutional theory …'

John Oberdiek Source: Constitutional Commentary

Review of the hardback:'Webber's discussion of the limitation of rights comes with a more general theory of the constitution … It is, thus, a book of impressive breadth.'

Charles-Maxime Panaccio Source: International Journal of Constitutional Law

Review of the hardback:'Webber's book invites us to think about rights in new ways and is a welcome contribution to constitutional theory discourse.'

Dwight Newman Source: Alberta Law Review

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Contents

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