Constitutional Remedies and Socio-Economic Rights

This project contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations over how courts should contribute to realizing constitutionalized social and economic rights. I focus specifically on judicial remedies as a site of constitutional change. The project argues that courts have a valuable role in lending “institutional support” to underperforming state actors and in building a government’s rights-respecting capacities. I draw on case studies from landmark proceedings concerning the right to food in India, the rights of internal migrants displaced by conflict in Colombia, and the plight of landless communities in South Africa. The judicial role that emerges from this work differs in meaningful ways from courts’ traditionally-conceived roles of enforcing rights, and in engaging in “dialogue” with other political actors.