Fundamental Rights: Justification and Interpretation

The notion of fundamental rights is one of the most important topics of our times. Strident controversies concerning the content of fundamental rights have increased worldwide, sometimes degenerating into violent conflicts. Yet legal and political theorists have so far paid insufficient attention to these controversies.

This collection of essays by internationally renowned scholars is a salutary first step in the direction of resolving these disputes. The essays discuss many urgent problems concerning fundamental rights, including how such rights can be philosophically explained; how fundamental and human rights are related; how fundamental constitutional rights protecting minorities from oppression can be justified; and how constitutional human rights provisions can be implemented and applied.

The authors hope to contribute to solving the disputes on fundamental rights through intellectual consensus rather than violence. As the contributions - while written with rigor and nuance - are highly accessible to the lay reader, this volume will be of interest both to an academic as well as a general audience.