The Global Model of Constitutional Rights

Drawing on analyses of a broad range of cases from the UK, the European Court of Human Rights, Germany, Canada, the US, and South Africa, this book provides the first substantive moral, reconstructive theory of the global model. It shows that it is based on a coherent conception of constitutional rights which connects to attractive accounts of judicial review, democracy and the separation of powers.

The first part of the book develops a theory of the scope of rights under the global model. It defends the idea of a general right to personal autonomy: a right to everything which, according to the agent's self-conception, is in his or her interest. The function of this right is to acknowledge that every act by a public authority which places a burden on a person's autonomy requires justification. The second part of the book proposes a theory of the structure of this justification which offers original and useful accounts of the important doctrines of balancing and proportionality.