Global Constitutionalism 2015: The Reach of Rights

Judith Resnik (ed)

Global Constitutionalism Seminar E-Book Series

The Reach of Rights explores the crossing of borders—by migrants searching for safety, by internet technologies disseminating information, by governments seeking to enhance national security, and by courts analyzing legal claims and crafting remedies. The debates concern the roles judges play when asked to alter decisions made by other public and private sector actors. Cross-border issues are sometimes framed in terms of the “extra-territorial” implications of laws and remedies, yet in light of the unceasing movement of persons, objects, information, and rights around the globe, one might understand many of the problems to be “a-territorial,” in the sense that the land masses and political authority of nation-states do not map easily onto either the alleged harms or the remedies.

The five chapters prompt questions about the durability of the spatial, territorial conception of rights, predicated on the practices of a particular body-politic and privileging the status of citizenship. In each chapter, arguments are made that, in light of constitutional obligations to respect individuals’ privacy, dignity, well-being, and their membership in families, judges ought to intervene.

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