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The Collaborative Constitution by Aileen Kavanagh. Cambridge University Press, 2024, xvi + 492pp (£120.00 hardback) ISBN: 978 1 108 49326 0

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The Collaborative Constitution by Aileen Kavanagh. Cambridge University Press, 2024, xvi + 492pp (£120.00 hardback) ISBN: 978 1 108 49326 0

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2024

Michael Lane*
Affiliation:
University of Worcester, Worcester, UK

Abstract

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Type
Current Developments: Book Review
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society of Legal Scholars

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References

1 Eg on courts see Hillebrecht, C Domestic Politics and International Human Rights Tribunals: The Problem of Compliance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) p 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘[n]o single domestic actor, not even the strongest executive, can satisfy all of the tribunals’ mandates, legally or logistically’.

2 Kavanagh, A The Collaborative Constitution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024)Google Scholar.

3 Ibid, p 13.

4 Ibid, p 32. Kavanagh uses Manicheanism to compare legal and political constitutionalism to the choice between ‘good’ and ‘evil’.

5 Ibid, p 226.

6 Ibid, p 31.

7 Ibid, p 32.

8 Ibid, p 38.

9 Sikkink, Notably K Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Kavanagh, above n 2, p 80.

11 Ibid, pp 87–89.

12 Ibid, pp 91–92.

13 Ibid, pp 98–100.

14 Ibid, p 103.

15 Ibid, p 102 (emphasis added).

16 Ibid, p 127.

17 Also see Kavanagh, AThe Joint Committee on Human Rights: a hybrid breed of constitutional watchdog’ in Hunt, M et al (eds) Parliaments and Human Rights (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2015)Google Scholar.

18 Kavanagh, above n 2, p 158.

19 Cabinet Office ‘Guide to Making Legislation’ (2022), available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-making-legislation, para 11.29.

20 Albeit this is an area of the Committee's work that is seen as needing improvement: see Hourigan, E et alParliament and human rights’ in Horne, A et al (eds) Parliament and the Law (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2022)Google Scholar.

21 Dickson, Notably B International Human Rights Monitoring Mechanisms: A Study of Their Impact in the UK (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law The Implementation of Human Rights Recommendations in the UK (2023), available at https://binghamcentre.biicl.org/projects/national-implementation-of-human-rights-global-survey-of-state-implementation-systems-and-processes.

22 Kavanagh, above n 2, p 360.

23 Ibid, p 270.

24 Ibid, p 269.

25 Kavanagh considers these to be R v Home Secretary, ex p Anderson [2003] UKHL 46, A and Others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] UKHL 56 (the ‘Belmarsh case’), R (Thompson) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] UKSC 17, and Smith v Scott [2007] CSIH 9.

26 Kavanagh, above n 2, p 361 (emphasis added).

27 See notably Goldsworthy, J Parliamentary Sovereignty: Contemporary Debates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) chs 2–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 This might plausibly be defensible given the various provisions of the HRA 1998 that preserve parliamentary sovereignty, namely ss 3(2), 4(6) and 6(3)(b).