"Liberal constitutionalism has come under sharp attack as globalization led to a confluence of huge disparities in wealth, identity-based alienation triggered by mass migration, and accompanying erosions of democracy. Liberal constitutionalism has also been challenged by illiberal populists who have adapted its framework to mask their aim to subvert its core values. These developments bring the nexus between the constitution and justice to the fore--and in particular that concerning distributive justice in its three dimensions of redistribution, recognition, and representation. The book provides a systematic account of the central role of distributive justice in the normative legitimation of liberal constitutions. Because what distributive justice requires is highly contested, and constitutions are supposed to be susceptible of garnering a consensus among those they govern, constitutions only ought to guarantee essential but limited aspects of justice. Drawing on Rawls's insight that distributive justice calls for "constitutional essentials", the book advances the thesis that liberal constitutions must incorporate certain "justice essentials". The book is divided into three parts. Part one examines the combination of current legal, economic, political, and ideological developments that pose challenges to the normative viability of liberal constitutionalism. Part two offers a rereading of the relevant philosophical and jurisprudential literature that sheds crucial theoretical light on the relationship between constitution and justice. This rereading draws on key figures in both the analytic and the continental traditions. Finally, part three makes the case for a thoroughly pluralistic approach being optimal in the quest for a constitution's justice essentials"