The Support Structure as a Necessary Condition for Sustained Judicial Attention to Rights: A Response

Urribarri, Schorpp, Randazzo, and Songer pose an important question in the comparative study of courts: why do some high courts devote sustained attention to rights while others do not? I have argued that a rights-advocacy support structure is a necessary condition, making sustained judicial attention to rights possible. Claiming to test this thesis, USRS propose and test a different hypothesis, that changes in a country’s support structure directly cause changes in judicial attention to rights. This represents a misunderstanding of the nature of a necessary-condition thesis. USRS, however, devote most of their paper to testing this direct-cause thesis. Near the end of their paper they briefly assess my necessary-condition thesis, asserting that several countries’ high courts have had rights agendas in the absence of a support structure. Research on these countries, however, demonstrates that each had a support structure at the relevant time, confirming my thesis.