Legislated Rights in the real world

Abstract

This essay, written for a symposium in the Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies on Legislated Rights: Securing Human Rights Through Legislation (Cambridge University Press 2018, pb 2019), engages with the careful and challenging contributions by Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov, Lech Garlicki, Vicki Jackson, James Kelly, and Yaniv Roznai. Organised around the theme of the relevance of Legislated Rights in the real world of fallible legislatures, the essay explores seven themes: (1) the neglect of the legislature from court-centred modes of human rights discourse; (2) the central case method; (3) the relevance of real world legislatures to the central case method; (4) populism and non-central cases; (5) the good legislator; (6) the specification of rights and the general welfare; and (7) constitutional rights and judicial review.