The chapter discusses distributional analysis as a method of legal analysis interested in understanding the consequences of rules. While recognizing that this method shares this goal with proportionality analysis, the author intimately discards a reconciliation of both based on their different relationship to a theory of democracy. The author argues that proportionality analysis is wed to a vision of judges as restrained by the commands of legislators (or constitutional lawmakers), while distributional analysis sees judges as political actors entrusted with realizing the goal of redistribution. The case of gender mainstreaming is used to illustrate that arguing in favor of the use of distributional analysis does not mean forcing judges into continually adopting structural injunctions, nor provokes such levels of polarization that the sought-after redistribution is sabotaged by increased levels of countermobilization or backlash.

The interplay between Christianity and international law … The terms “Christianity” and “international law,” as well as their relationship to each other, are not easy to understand – at least where there might be consensus. The aim here is to diagnose the elusiveness of these phenomena, to explain why this is important to understand, and to set the stage for further investigations.

So why is it that we cannot come to a consensus about this issue of “Christianity and international law”? If you are inclined, pause a moment with this text and build a list of possible reasons … Some contrarians might answer that we actually do have a relative consensus, that most reasonable people, at least with the opportunity to learn, find common agreement over most things and whatever differences simply reflect the diversity, the spice, the irreducible uniqueness of individual personalities and cultures.