Kramer's Delimiting Test for Legal Rights

Abstract

Professor Matthew Kramer offers a delimiting criterion or test for his Interest Theory of legal claim-rights. The ‘Minimum Sufficiency’ test is thought necessary because the Interest Theory is charged with being over-inclusive: it purportedly counts certain agents and entities as legal right-holders even though the law itself does not recognize them as such. This paper nonetheless argues that Kramer’s test is inadequate and unnecessary. It proceeds as follows. Section II offers a brief explanation of the Interest and Will Theories of rights. Section III outlines the over-inclusiveness charge levied against the Interest Theory. Section IV explains Kramer’s test and how it aims to resolve the matter, while Section V shows why the test does not do the job. Section VI, however, provides Kramer and other rights theorists with a superior alternative.