Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T09:25:02.039Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

With a little help from the courts: the promises and limits of weak form judicial review of social and economic rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2010

Adam Shinar
Adam Shinar
Affiliation:
SJD candidate, Harvard Law School
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This is a review of Mark Tushnet’s Weak Courts, Strong Rights: Judicial Review and Social Welfare Rights in Comparative Constitutional Law. The review outlines the main arguments in the book and then moves to elaborate on two preconditions which are necessary for Tushnet’s project to succeed: the existence of a strong civil society and an institutional willingness to implement social welfare rights. In addition, this review seeks to situate the book within Tushnet’s broader constitutional theory project. In particular, the review attempts to reconcile this work with Tushnet’s 1999 Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts, a work that initially seems to be diametrically opposed to his new book.

Type
Review Essay
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , December 2009 , pp. 417 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barak-erez, Daphne and Gross, Aeyal M. (eds) (2007) Exploring Social Rights: Between Theory and Practice. Oxford: Hart Publishing.Google Scholar
Bateup, Christine (2006) ‘The Dialogic Promise: Assessing the Normative Potential of Theories of Constitutional Dialogue’, Brooklyn Law Review 71: 1109–180.Google Scholar
Bickel, Alexander M. (1962) The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Brettschneider, Corey (2006) ‘Popular Constitutionalism and the Case for Judicial Review’, Political Theory 34: 516–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calabresi, Steven G. (2006) ‘A Shining City on a Hill: American Exceptionalism and the Supreme Court’s Reliance of Foreign Law’, Boston University Law Review 86: 1335–416.Google Scholar
Carson, Jonathan and Smith, Charles W. (2003) ‘Waiting for the Revolution: Democracy, Dialogue, and Dunmore’ (Unpublished manuscript, on file with author).Google Scholar
Christiansen, Eric C. (2007) ‘Adjudicating Non-Justiciable Rights: Socio-Economic Rights and the South African Constitutional Court’, Columbia Human Rights Law Review 38: 321–86.Google Scholar
Cohen, Morris R. (1927) ‘Property and Sovereignty’, Cornell Law Quarterly 13: 8–30.Google Scholar
Cohen, Morris R. (1933) ‘The Basis of Contract’, Harvard Law Review 46: 553–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cover, Robert (1986) ‘Violence and the Word’, Yale Law Journal 95: 1601–630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorf, Michael C. and Sabel, Charles F. (1998) ‘A Constitution of Democratic Experimentalism’, Columbia Law Review 98: 267–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epp, Charles R. (1998) The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eylon, Yuval and Harel, Alon (2006) ‘The Right to Judicial Review’, Virginia Law Review 92: 991–1022.Google Scholar
Fabre, Cecile (2000) Social Rights Under the Constitution: Government and the Decent Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Barry (1993) ‘Dialogue and Judicial Review’, Michigan Law Review 91: 577–682.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardbaum, Stephen (2001) ‘The New Commonwealth Model of Constitutionalism’, American Journal of Comparative Law 49: 707–760.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graber, Mark (1993) ‘The Nonmajoritarian Difficulty: Legislative Deference to the Judiciary’, Studies in American Political Development 7: 35–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hale, Robert (1923) ‘Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State’, Political Science Quarterly 38: 470–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hickman, Tom R. (2005) ‘Constitutional Dialogue, Constitutional Theories and the Human Rights Act 1998’, Public Law Summer 2005: 306–335.Google Scholar
Hogg, Peter W. and Bushell, Allison A. (1997) ‘The Charter Dialogue Between Courts and Legislatures (Or Perhaps the Charter of Rights Isn’t Such a Bad Thing After All)’, Osgoode Hall Law Journal 35: 75–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huscroft, Grant (2007) ‘Constitutionalism from the Top Down’, Osgoode Hall Law Journal 45: 91–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hweshe, Francis (2008) ‘Housing Heroine Still has no Proper House’, Cape Argus, 29 July, p. 6 (available at: www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20080729114807519C451650) [last accessed 17 August 2009].Google Scholar
Kelbley, Charles A. (2004) ‘The Constitutional Essentials of Political Liberalism: Are There Limits to Constitutional Change? Rawls on Comprehensive Doctrines, Unconstitutional Amendments, and the Basis of Equality’, Fordham Law Review 72: 1487–536.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Duncan (1982) ‘The Stages of the Decline of the Public/Private Distinction’, University of Pennsylvania Law Review 130: 1349–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klug, Francesca and Starmer, Keir (2005) ‘Standing Back from the Human Rights Act: How Effective Is It Five Years On?’, Public Law Winter 2005: 716–28.Google Scholar
Koski, William S.(2003) ‘Fuzzy Standards, Institutional Constraints, and Judicial Attitudes: The Politics of State Supreme Court Decision-Making in Educational Finance Reform.’ Unpublished PhD Dissertation.Google Scholar
Koski, William S. (2004) ‘The Politics of Judicial Decision-Making in Educational Policy Reform Litigation’, Hastings Law Journal 55: 1077–1234.Google Scholar
Kramer, Larry D. (2004) The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, Charles (2006) ‘Scalia Tells Congress to Mind Its Own Business’, Washington Post, 19 May, p. A19.Google Scholar
Levinson, Daryl J. (1999) ‘Rights Essentialism and Remedial Equilibration’, Columbia Law Review 99: 857–940.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manfredi, Christopher P. and Kelly, James B. (1999) ‘Six Degrees of Dialogue: A Response to Hogg and Bushell’, Osgoode Hall Law Journal 37: 513–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michelman, Frank I. (2000) ‘Populist Natural Law (Reflections on Tushnet’s “Thin Constitution”)’, University of Richmond Law Review 34: 461–88.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas (1991) Equality and Partiality. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Parrish, Austen L. (2007) ‘A Storm in a Teacup: The U.S. Supreme Court’s Use of Foreign Law’, University of Illinois Law Review 2007: 637–80.Google Scholar
Phillips, Michael (1985) ‘Reflections on the Transition from Ideal to Non-Ideal Theory’, Nous 19: 551–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John (1971/1999) A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roach, Kent (2001) The Supreme Court on Trial: Judicial Activism or Democratic Dialogue. Toronto: Irwin Law.Google Scholar
Sachs, Albie (2007) ‘Enforcement of Social and Economic Rights’, American University International Law Review 22: 673–708.Google Scholar
Schauer, Frederick (2006) ‘The Court’s Agenda – and the Nation’s’, Harvard Law Review 120: 4–64.Google Scholar
Schrag, Peter (2003) Final Test: The Battle for Adequacy in America’s Schools. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. (1995) ‘Incompletely Theorized Agreements’, Harvard Law Review 108: 1733–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thro, William E. (1989), ‘To Render Them Safe: The Analysis of State Constitutional Provisions in Public School Finance Litigation’, Virginia Law Review 75: 1639–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thro, William E. (1990) ‘The Third Wave: The Impact of the Montana, Kentucky, and Texas Decisions on the Future of Public School Finance Reform Litigation’, Journal of Law & Education 19: 219–50.Google Scholar
Thro, William E. (1994) ‘Judicial Analysis During the Third Wave of School Finance Litigation: The Massachusetts Decision as a Model’, Boston College Law Review 35: 597–618.Google Scholar
Tushnet, Mark (1999) Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tushnet, Mark (2003) The New Constitutional Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tushnet, Mark (2006a) ‘Popular Constitutionalism as Political Law’, Chicago-Kent Law Review 88: 991–1006.Google Scholar
Tushnet, Mark (2006b) ‘When is Knowing Less Better Than Knowing More? Unpacking the Controversy over Supreme Court Reference to Non-U.S. Law’, Minnesota Law Review 90: 1275–1302.Google Scholar
Tushnet, Mark (2006c) ‘Referring to Constitutional Law in Constitutional Interpretation: An Episode in the Culture Wars’, University of Baltimore Law Review 35: 299–312.Google Scholar
Tushnet, Mark (2008) ‘Dialogic Judicial Review’, Arkansas Law Review 61: 205–216.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy (2001) Law and Disagreement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy (2006) ‘The Core of the Case Against Judicial Review’, Yale Law Journal 115: 1346–406.Google Scholar