A Critique of Proportionality and Balancing

Francisco J. Urbina is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. He received his DPhil in Law from the University of Oxford in 2013. His research focuses on constitutional rights, legal formalism, and the separation of powers, and has been published in journals such as the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, the American Journal of Jurisprudence, and the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, among others.

Professor Urbina is the author of A Critique of Proportionality and Balancing (Cambridge University Press 2017), which he will be discussing at this book launch. The principle of proportionality, which has become the standard test for adjudicating human and constitutional rights disputes in jurisdictions worldwide has had few critics. Proportionality is generally taken for granted or enthusiastically promoted or accepted with minor qualifications. A Critique of Proportionality and Balancing presents a frontal challenge to this orthodoxy. It provides a comprehensive critique of the proportionality principle, and particularly of its most characteristic component, balancing. Divided into three parts, the book presents arguments against the proportionality test, critiques the view of rights entailed by it, and proposes an alternative understanding of fundamental rights and their limits.

Presentation of the book will be followed by a reply from Dr Dominic Burbidge.

For further information on the book, please see this link.