@article{2025:bchardtorres:remedies_a,
title = {Remedies and Institutional Support in Social Rights Litigation},
year = {2025},
note = {In some jurisdictions of the Global South, courts seized with social
rights claims have occasionally issued orders that help build state
capacity. These remedies can take various forms. Some are managerial,
others are dialogic. Some are specific and individualized, while
others attempt to confront structural problems. Generally, these
orders neglect the work of developing substantive rights doctrine.
Instead, they work to build a more effective, coordinated, and
attentive government. In short, these orders see courts offer
institutional support to other state actors. This Article surfaces
institutional support as a potential approach in social rights
litigation. Drawing on landmark social rights proceedings in India,
South Africa, and Colombia, the Article argues that this varied
remedial approach has already been successfully deployed and may
constitute one of the contributions of courts in the Global South to
comparative law. Institutional support can also be understood as a
trade-off between the competing dimensions of transformative
constitutionalism. On one hand, the approach presents paths for
achieving meaningful judicial impact, while curbing some of the risks
associated with enforcing social rights. On the other, it neglects the
work of elaborating social rights’ critical political vision, as
well as substantive rights doctrine. Institutional support also
implies an uncoupling of constitutional rights and judicial remedies,
but this particular feature is welcome. The uncoupling of right and
remedy can help manage the public’s expectations of what courts can
accomplish, and it can help foster a rights discourse that is less
court centric.},
journal = {VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee},
pages = {97--120},
author = {Béchard-Torres, Edward},
volume = {58},
number = {1}
}