Regulatory Rights: Supreme Court Activism, the Public Interest, and the Making of Constitutional Law
ISBN: 9780226944739
Platform/Publisher: Oxford Academic / University of Chicago Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Company and Commercial Law Constitutional and Administrative Law;

We often hear--with particular frequency during recent Supreme Court nomination hearings--that justices should not create constitutional rights, but should instead enforce the rights that the Constitution enshrines. In Regulatory Rights , Larry Yackle sets out to convince readers that such arguments fundamentally misconceive both the work that justices do and the character of the American Constitution in whose name they do it. It matters who sits on the Supreme Court, he argues, precisely because justices do create individual constitutional rights.

Traversing a wide range of Supreme Court decisions that established crucial precedents about racial discrimination, the death penalty, and sexual freedom, Yackle contends that the rights we enjoy are neither more nor less than what the justices choose to make of them. Regulatory Rights is a bracing read that will be heatedly debated by all those interested in constitutional law and the judiciary.

Larry Yackle is professor of law and the Basil Yanakakis Research Scholar at Boston University School of Law. He is the author of several books, including Reclaiming the Federal Court s and Reform and Regret .


hidden image for function call