The course aims to analyze and clarify the concepts and legal theoretical issues that characterize contemporary constitutionalism: what is a fundamental right; how the provisions that codify fundamental rights are to be interpreted; what counts as a “principle”; what it means for a norm to occupy a “superior” or “supreme” position within the legal system; which tools are involved in legal argumentation concerning fundamental rights; etc.

The course seeks to provide a more perspicuous understanding of the structure and dynamics of contemporary constitutionalism, while also critically reassessing some of the arguments and assumptions most frequently invoked by its critics.