Beyond the Courts, beyond the State: Reflections on Caldwell’s ‘Chinese Constitutionalism and Horizontal Rights’

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorRamraj, Victor V.
dc.date.accessioned2017-03-02T21:08:36Z
dc.date.available2017-03-02T21:08:36Z
dc.date.copyright2012en_US
dc.date.issued2012
dc.description.abstractThis article provides a critical response to Ernest Caldwell's article, Horizontal Rights and Chinese Constitutionalism: Judicialization through Labor Disputes. According to Caldwell, those looking for an emerging constitutional culture in China should be looking not in the higher courts (as the American paradigm of constitutional law suggests), but in the lower courts that settle day-to-day disputes. Moreover, the constitutional discourse in those lower courts is not about limiting state power, but about the need for "horizontal" protections of citizens--specifically laborers--from their powerful employers in furtherance of constitutional values. This article offers three responses to Caldwell's thesis. First, while acknowledging and drawing on other constitutional traditions in western liberal democracies to illustrate the significance of "horizontal rights" in constitutional thought, Caldwell nevertheless concludes that China's approach to rights is distinct from the Western tradition, glossing over important differences within Western constitutional thought. Second, while criticizing a single-minded focus on the decisions of the higher courts, Caldwell's approach remains largely court-centric; there are, however, other understandings of constitutionalism in U.S. constitutional scholarship and in the varying practices of constitutionalism in East and Southeast Asia that are less focused on courts. Finally, the observation that constitutional principles might play an important role in moderating private power in an age of multinational enterprises could be extended beyond the jurisdictional boundaries of the state. If private and hybrid (public-private) forms of power are increasingly operating beyond states, we need to find innovative ways of moderating that power that stretch our understanding of constitutional law.en_US
dc.description.reviewstatusRevieweden_US
dc.description.scholarlevelFacultyen_US
dc.identifier.citationRamraj, V. V. (2012). Beyond the courts, beyond the state: Reflections on Caldwell’s ‘Chinese Constitutionalism and Horizontal Rights.’ Chicago-Kent Law Review, 88(1), 93-103.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview/vol88/iss1/7/
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/7824
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherChicago-Kent Law Reviewen_US
dc.subject.departmentFaculty of Law
dc.titleBeyond the Courts, beyond the State: Reflections on Caldwell’s ‘Chinese Constitutionalism and Horizontal Rights’en_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
ramraj_victor_chicago-kentlrev_2012.pdf
Size:
784.25 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.74 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download

Collections

Faculty and Staff Publications
 
University of Victoria Libraries

We acknowledge and respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Esquimalt) Peoples on whose territory the university stands, and the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.