Having identified proportionality as the main tool for limiting constitutional rights, Aharon Barak explores its four components (proper purpose, rational connection, necessity and proportionality stricto sensu) and discusses the relationships between proportionality and reasonableness and between courts and legislation. He goes on to analyse the concept of deference and to consider the main arguments against the use of proportionality (incommensurability and irrationality). Alternatives to proportionality are compared and future developments of proportionality are suggested.

'Proportionality: Constitutional Rights and their Limitations has positioned Barak among the leading proponents of the received approach to human rights law.'

Grégoire Webber Source: Public Law

'Barak’s Proportionality is probably the most important and comprehensive book written on the subject to date.'

Source: International Journal of Constitutional Law