ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book assesses group-differentiated rights from a number of different perspectives. It explores the context of contemporary debates in legal and political theory concerning the nature of rights and the relationship between rights and individualism. Constitutive theory, in the context of describing rights, reveals an important sense in which law may influence self-invention. The book describes more particularly the nature and significance of the categories of rights-bearers engendered by legal rights. It seeks to defend liberal membership against an important objection, an objection, indeed, that would challenge even the characterization of the conception constructed as liberal. The book suggests that liberal membership will at times curtail individual autonomy in order to advance other critical values, such as equality, fairness, or public order. It concludes with an assessment of the relationship between liberal and political membership in the context of immigration and border policy.