ABSTRACT
The state's obligation to protect human capabilities limits the state's reach, in much the same way as does the state's obligation to protect rights. In Women and Human Development, Professor Martha Nussbaum develops the basic argument—an argument the author refers to as the "capabilities approach," and much of which she has spelt out elsewhere—in two directions. First, she develops—somewhat—the argument for the constitutional obligatoriness of the state's duty to protect fundamental capabilities. Second, Nussbaum demonstrates that a "capabilities approach" to constitutionalism puts the problem and injustice of women's inequality in dramatic, sharp relief. The lack of attention in Women and Human Development to constitutionalism, constitutional doctrine, and even constitutional theory, is unfortunate for a formal, or logical reason: Nussbaum's argument, to be complete, needs at least a theory of constitutionalism, if not a full fledged constitutional argument.
