A Theory of Constitutional Rights

Robert Alexy is Professor of Public Law and Legal Philosophy at the Christian Albrechts University, Kiel, Germany. Between 1994 and 1998 he was President of the German Section of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. He is known and admired worldwide as a leading philosopher.Julian Rivers was appointed Lecturer in Law at the University of Bristol after studying at the University of Cambridge and the University of Gottingen. This is his first book.

This work provides one of the most penetrating, analytically refined, and influential general accounts of constitutional rights available. American realists will recognize the structure of rights it proposes as functional and pragmatic. Comparative constitutional jurists will recognize it as a reconstruction of what is, perhaps, the dominant understanding of constitutional rights in the world. It would be a mistake for constitutional scholars of any tradition not to engage this book seriously.

• PREFACE ; A Theory of Constitutional Rights and the British Constitution ; 1. The Content and Purpose of a Theory of Constitutional Rights ; 2. The Concept of a Constitutional Rights Norm ; 3. The Structure of Constitutional Rights Norms ; 4. Constitutional Rights as Subjective Rights ; 5. Constitutional Rights and Legal Status ; 6. The Limits of Constitutional Rights ; 7. The General Right to Liberty ; 8. The General Right to Equality ; 9. Rights to Positive State Action ; 10. Constitutional Rights and Constitutional Rights Norms in the Legal System ; POSTSCRIPT