By charting disagreements about the rule of law and showing the overlap and the conflicts between its different understandings, Aziz Z. Huq shows how that concept can be used as an important tool for framing and evaluating the goals and functions of law. He examines the historical origins of the rule of law--from ancient Greece to the constitutional theorist Albert Venn Dicey to the economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek-and shows how that value is coming under pressure from destabilizing terrorism, macroeconomic crisis, pandemics, autocratic populism, and climate change.

• Preface


• Chapter 1. Why Might the Rule of Law Matter?


• Chapter 2. Seeding the Rule of Law


• Chapter 3. The Rule of Law's Green Shoots


• Chapter 4. Three Branches of the Modern Rule of Law


• Chapter 5. Why does the Rule of Law Survive?


• Chapter 6. Cultivating the Rule of Law in New Lands


• Chapter 7. The Rule of Law Condemned: Critics and Crises


• Epilogue

Aziz Z. Huq is Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, specializing in U.S. and comparative constitutional law. His previous books include The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies and How to Save a Constitutional Democracy (with Tom Ginsburg).