Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
This event was organised by the UCL Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism.
Speaker: David Vitale (University of Warwick)
Commentators: Prof Colm O’Cinneide (UCL Laws) and Prof Virginia Mantouvalou (UCL Laws)
Chair: Prof Jeff King (UCL Laws)
Abstract
In this edition of the Public Law Seminar Series, hosted by the Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism at UCL Laws, David Vitale will present on his new book, Trust, Courts and Social Rights: A Trust-Based Framework for Social Rights Enforcement. Following his presentation, Colm O’Cinneide and Virginia Mantouvalou will offer their remarks, leading into further discussions. The event will be chaired by Jeff King.
About the Book
Trust, Courts and Social Rights proposes an innovative legal framework for judicially enforcing social rights that is rooted in public trust in government or 'political trust'. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book draws on theoretical and empirical scholarship on the concept of trust across disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, psychology and political theory. It integrates that scholarship with the relevant public law literature on social rights, fiduciary political theory and judicial review. In doing so, the book uses trust as an analytical lens for social rights law – importing ideas from the scholarship on trust into the social rights literature – and develops a normative argument that contributes to the controversial debate on how courts should enforce social rights. Also global in focus, the book uses cases from courts in Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America to illustrate how the trust-based framework operates in practice.
David Vitale is Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, School of Law. He is also currently the UK Principal Investigator for an ESRC-funded, multi-institution Trans-Atlantic Platform project on ‘Open Constitutional Democracy’. His work has been published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Legal Studies and Global Constitutionalism, among others. David holds law degrees from the UK (LSE), the US (NYU) and Canada (Osgoode Hall Law School), as well as a degree in psychology (University of Toronto). He has worked as a judicial clerk to the Justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Supreme Court of Israel, has held various research positions globally and has practised as a litigator in Canada.
This event was organised by the UCL Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism.
Speaker: David Vitale (University of Warwick)
Commentators: Prof Colm O’Cinneide (UCL Laws) and Prof Virginia Mantouvalou (UCL Laws)
Chair: Prof Jeff King (UCL Laws)
Abstract
In this edition of the Public Law Seminar Series, hosted by the Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism at UCL Laws, David Vitale will present on his new book, Trust, Courts and Social Rights: A Trust-Based Framework for Social Rights Enforcement. Following his presentation, Colm O’Cinneide and Virginia Mantouvalou will offer their remarks, leading into further discussions. The event will be chaired by Jeff King.
About the Book
Trust, Courts and Social Rights proposes an innovative legal framework for judicially enforcing social rights that is rooted in public trust in government or 'political trust'. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book draws on theoretical and empirical scholarship on the concept of trust across disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, psychology and political theory. It integrates that scholarship with the relevant public law literature on social rights, fiduciary political theory and judicial review. In doing so, the book uses trust as an analytical lens for social rights law – importing ideas from the scholarship on trust into the social rights literature – and develops a normative argument that contributes to the controversial debate on how courts should enforce social rights. Also global in focus, the book uses cases from courts in Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America to illustrate how the trust-based framework operates in practice.
David Vitale is Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, School of Law. He is also currently the UK Principal Investigator for an ESRC-funded, multi-institution Trans-Atlantic Platform project on ‘Open Constitutional Democracy’. His work has been published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Legal Studies and Global Constitutionalism, among others. David holds law degrees from the UK (LSE), the US (NYU) and Canada (Osgoode Hall Law School), as well as a degree in psychology (University of Toronto). He has worked as a judicial clerk to the Justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Supreme Court of Israel, has held various research positions globally and has practised as a litigator in Canada.
