John Oberdiek (Rutgers University School of Law, Camden) has posted Specifying Constitutional Rights (Constitutional Commentary, Vol. 27, p. 231, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
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This paper reviews Grégoire C. N. Webber's book, The Negotiable Constitution: On the Limitation of Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2009), defending a specificationist account of constitutional rights, which holds that the limitation clauses common to most constitutions and charters largely define the very content of the rights that they limit. Having defended specificationism about rights generally in previous work, which Webber relies upon in developing his own view, I pay special attention to the case for applying that account to constitutional rights. I conclude that while a specified account of constitutional rights faces unique challenges, it can overcome them and offers a promising and novel re-conceptualization of the nature of constitutional rights.
Both Webber's book & Oberdiek's review are highly recommended.
