ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book clarifies some of the basic terms and begins the analysis by introducing the agents of constitutional argument: the persons or entities who populate legal argument in constitutional cases. They are divided into classes: parties, who make constitutional arguments; and actors, about whose interests constitutional arguments are made. The book examines the concept of harm and introduces the concept of consent. It argues that precisely one formal concept of consent combines with each concept of harm and combines the formal concepts of harm and consent to generate a complete set of background theories underlying arguments about constitutional rights. The book show how any substantive argument about a constitutional right can be seen as a version of one of the background theories.
