Quest for Rights

Edited by Massimo La Torre, Magna Græcia University, Italy, Leone Niglia, University of Madrid, Spain and Mart Susi, School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, Estonia

'The Quest for Rights explores both the meaning of, and justification for, fundamental constitutional rights. It is a quest to establish a strong meaning of the normativity of law, and its role in the social acts of positive law and legal instantiation. The incredibly varied contributions philosophically and critically engage with the thesis of Robert Alexy's ideal dimension of law, and offer a wide discussion of political and legal reasoning alongside the quest for proportionality in the realization of rights. This masterful book should be considered key reading in legal philosophy.'--Jean-Yves Cherot, Aix Marseille University, France'The Quest for Rights brings together an impressive array of scholars to discuss the central issues of human rights and constitutional law: grounds and legitimacy, pluralism and harmonisation, and proportionality and balancing. It is an admirable collection.'--Brian H. Bix, University of Minnesota Law School, US'The book offers an original discussion about law and rights and substantial contributions to the concept of subjective rights which, as Niklas Luhmann said, ''is probably the most important achievement of the evolution of law in modern times.'' It covers rights discourse in legal theory, in the human rights régime, in constitutional law and in private law and focuses on the relation between rights and justice, in which the ideal dimension of law is to be found.'--Thomas Gutmann, University of Muenster, Germany

• Contents:IntroductionMassimo La Torre, Leone Niglia and Mart Susi1. A Non-Positivistic Concept of Constitutional RightsRobert Alexy2. Radbruch’s Formula and Human RightsMartin Borowski3. The Practice-Independency of Human RightsLuís Pereira Coutinho4. Constitutional Rights as Moral JudgmentsPavlos Eleftheriadis5. A Response to Estonian Critics of Principles TheoryMadis Ernits6. How Right is the Basis of LawMatthias Kaufmann7. Turning proportionality upside down: from legitimising principle to critical toolAgustín José Menéndez8. Human Rights are not Universal and can not be Natural Rein Müllerson9. Between “Institutionalizing Reason” and Private Law: A Comparative Map of InfluencesLeone Niglia10. Balancing fundamental rights on the Internet – proportionality paradigm and private online capabilitiesMart Susi11. An Existential Foundation for Human Rights— Meaning Before JustificationMassimo La Torre 12. Principles and policies: once moreKaarlo TuoriIndex