Towering Judges and Global Constitutionalism

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This chapter places the towering judges phenomenon in a specific historical and global context, i.e., at the height of global constitutionalism – c. the 1990s – when the liberal cosmopolitanism, human rights culture, and constitutionalization that had started after WWII peaked following the fall of the Soviet empire and an influx of new constitutional democracies. I list three connections between global constitutionalism and towering judges. First, global constitutionalism placed constitutional judges at the center of the moral and ideological revolution it presented, not only giving them immense moral authority, political influence, and prestige but also enhancing judicial personal agency, i.e., toweringness. Second, the conception of rights adopted at this time empowered judges to interpret rights broadly and expansively to reach, as much as possible, a universal ideal, which also promoted agency and creativity, i.e., toweringness. Last, to belong to the global community of judges that was a feature of global constitutionalism, a judge had to excel and stand out, i.e., tower. The chapter ends by exploring some of the normative challenges to the concept of towering judges.