The European Yearbook of Constitutional Legislation is happy to announce a name for submissions for its eighth quantity (2026) on the theme of Social Rights and Constitutional Justice.
Social rights – such because the rights to housing, healthcare, schooling, and social safety – are gaining elevated prominence in constitutional discourse, significantly within the mild of widening inequalities, world well being emergencies just like the COVID-19 pandemic, and the far-reaching socio-economic results of migration and local weather change. These rights embody the promise of a constitutional order that not solely protects particular person freedoms but additionally ensures the fabric circumstances important for a dignified life. But their efficient realisation stays deeply contested. Past political resistance and useful resource constraints, social rights should additionally deal with entrenched conceptions of constitutions as devices of limitation reasonably than empowerment – as frameworks that constrain state motion reasonably than mandate proactive social provision. This rigidity raises basic questions in regards to the evolving function of constitutional regulation in securing substantive equality and social justice within the twenty first century.
Whereas the judicialisation of social rights claims is gaining momentum in Europe and past, this quantity seeks to discover social rights in a broader and extra built-in sense, situating them inside the framework of constitutional justice. Reasonably than focusing solely on judicial evaluate, the amount will look at constitutional justice as a multi-actor and systemic effort to understand social rights in ways in which promote equality, inclusion and human dignity. Thus, constitutional justice is a multifaceted course of that encompasses legislative selections, administrative implementation, and institutional accountability. The amount will think about how constitutions construction the duties of the state and its establishments in securing the essential circumstances obligatory for human dignity, and the way a variety of actors – parliaments, governments, courts, and civil society – collaborate, contest, and contribute to the definition, interpretation, and realisation of social rights. In doing so, the amount invitations reflection on how constitutional programs can reply to enduring inequalities via each authorized mechanisms and democratic engagement.
Submissions might tackle, however will not be restricted to, the next matters:
The constitutional instruments obtainable to lawmakers and policymakers in constructing social safety programs that align with social rights.
The interplay between legislatures and courts in defining the scope and limits of social rights, with consideration to constitutional dialogue, judicial deference, and institutional roles.
The function of regional courts – such because the European Courtroom of Human Rights, the Courtroom of Justice of the European Union or the Inter-American Courtroom of Human Rights – in shaping the normative content material of social rights.
The tensions between judicial enforcement and democratic legitimacy, particularly in instances of judicial intervention in budgetary or redistributive insurance policies, and the way courts take care of separation of powers issues.
The methods through which constitutional programs reply to structural social exclusion, together with alongside strains of race, gender, incapacity, or migration standing.
The idea of constitutional justice and its implications for social rights and constitutionalism, together with its relationship to legitimacy, participation, and state accountability.
Classes from world experiences, comparable to transformative constitutionalism in South Africa and India or social rights litigation in Latin America.
Though the EYCL focuses totally on constitutional regulation and constitutionalism, it actively encourages interdisciplinary submissions from students analyzing the theme via historic, political science, financial, (social-)geographical, or anthropological views. The EYCL is concerned about submissions that look at the theme with regards to the European expertise, however contributions on its wider utility to different areas and organisations are additionally explicitly invited, together with these positioned within the International South.
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: 1 June 2025, though earlier submissions are inspired.
PROPOSAL SUBMISSION: Proposals of 350 to 500 phrases must be submitted to [email protected]. Please put ‘Proposed paper, quantity 8’ within the topic line of your electronic mail. Proposals ought to clearly define the proposed contribution’s principal arguments, methodology, and relevance to the amount’s theme. Profitable candidates might be notified by 1 July 2025. Full papers have to be submitted by 1 December 2025. Manuscripts must be not than 10,000 phrases, together with footnotes. In making ready their manuscript, authors ought to observe the EYCL Type Information, which might be despatched to them when notified about their profitable utility. Selections to publish a submission are primarily based on editorial and double-blind peer evaluate.
