Kai Möller, The Global Model of Constitutional Rights

In his ambitious and deeply engaging new book, Kai Möller makes his case for a particular understanding of constitutional rights which he calls the global model of constitutional rights. The global model is posed by Möller in opposition to the ‘dominant narrative of the philosophy of fundamental rights’ (p. 2). The dominant narrative recognises that (1) rights protect only especially important interests of individuals; (2) rights impose primarily or exclusively negative obligations on the state; (3) rights operate only between a subject and the state and not between subjects; and (4) rights enjoy a special normative force so that they may only be exceptionally outweighed by other considerations.

While Möller recognises that certain of the features of the dominant narrative, especially the second, have been eroded to a considerable degree in various jurisdictions, he states that under the global model all four elements of the dominant narrative have explicitly...