The paper looks at the possible role of administrativelaw and regulation in a period of economic crisis when theprevious systems in place to protect social values have failedbecause their primary interest was in the market. The intersystemicperspective highlights the role that regulation can havein balancing the needs of the market and those of citizens even ina globalized perspective in which must be reconsidered the role ofadministrative cooperation. The specific case of social rights isanalysed as it can be understood as a cyclic quadrilateral whosevertex are represented by sustainability, feasibility, executabilityand capability of being judged and lie in the same circle that isthe “legal reasonableness”, and the challenges that it has to facein a situation of economic crisis magnify the risks, underminingthe very existence of the binomial titularity/effectivity of therights and the consideration and balance of the fundamentalvalues of the system can avoid that the imperfect duties of whichthe state is titular might be at the basis of a dangerousdismantling of the idea of the welfare state
