ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳

I am currently working in two areas. My research in the theory of rights focuses on demonstrating the significance of attractive conceptions of dignity, freedom, and equality for contemporary, proportionality-based rights adjudication.

Furthermore, I am working on a book on the genital cutting of girls and boys, provisionally entitled Genital Cutting and the Dignity of the Child. The book will make the case for assessing genital cutting not only or primarily in terms of the harm that such practices inflict on children but also in terms of children’s human rights and human dignity, and it will correspondingly argue that the genital cutting of children is wrong as a matter of principle.

LL207 Civil Liberties and Human Rights

LL409E Comparative Human and Constitutional Rights

LL426E Rights Adjudication and Global Constitutionalism

LL468 European Human Rights Law

LL4L6 Theory of Constitutional Rights

LL4Z7 Comparative Constitutional Rights

The Global Model of Constitutional Rights (Oxford University Press, 2012; paperback, 2015)

Since the end of the Second World War and the subsequent success of constitutional judicial review, one particular model of constitutional rights has had remarkable success, first in Europe and now globally. This global model of constitutional rights is characterized by an extremely broad approach to the scope of rights (sometimes referred to as 'rights inflation'), the acceptance of horizontal effect of rights, positive obligations and increasingly also socio-economic rights, and the use of the doctrines of balancing and proportionality to determine the permissible limitations of 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.

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Paternalismus und Persönlichkeitsrecht (Paternalism and the Right to Privacy) (Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 2005)

• 'The Right to Justification and the Culture of Justification', forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Human Rights Law (Neha Jain and Mila Versteeg, eds);
•  in Sujit Choudhry, Michaela Hailbronner, and Mattias Kumm (eds), Global Canons in an Age of Contestation: Debating Foundational Texts of Constitutional Democracy and Human Rights (Oxford, 2024);  4/2022
• , ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Legal Studies Working Paper 13/2021, published in Aleida Mendes Borges, Sinéad Murphy, Yossi Nehushtan, and Peter Sutoris (eds.), (Routledge, 2023)
• 'Beyond Reasonableness: The Dignitarian Structure of Human and Constitutional Rights' (2021) (34) Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence, ;  ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Law Working Paper Series
•   20 (2020) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 508-532
•  ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Law Working Paper Series 19/2018; (2019) International Journal of Constitutional Law 17 (4) 1078-1097
•  12 (2018) Law & Ethics of Human Rights 103-110
•  12 (2018) Law & Ethics of Human Rights 281;  ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series 11-2017 
• ' 8 (2017) Jurisprudence 461-479; ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series 14-2017
•   in Vicki Jackson and Mark Tushnet, Proportionality: New Frontiers, New Challenges (CUP 2017), 103-129; ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series, 06-2016
• Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies (2014) 10 (1): 123-136.
• Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies 2014 10 (1): 206-223; first published in Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series WPS 28-2014 December 2014
• International Journal of Constitutional Law (2014) 12 (1) pp.222-225; Russian translation in № 4 (101) 2014 Sravitelnoe Konstitutsionnoe Obozrenie (Comparative Constitutional Review) 114-117.
• 'Constructing the Proportionality Test: An Emerging Global Conversation' in Liora Lazarus, Christopher McCrudden, and Nigel Bowles (eds.), (Hart 2014), 31-40
• 3 (2014) Global Constitutionalism 373-403
• in Huscroft, Miller, and Webber (eds.), Proportionality and the Rule of Law: Rights, Justification, Reasoning (CUP 2014);  also available in the Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series WPS 17-2013
• ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Law, Society and Economy Working Paper Series (WPS 4/2013)
• (2012) 10 (3) International Journal of Constitutional Law 709-731; Russian translation in № 4 (101) 2014 Sravitelnoe Konstitutsionnoe Obozrenie (Comparative Constitutional Review) 86-106
• in Bronitt, Gani and Hufnagel (eds.), Shooting to Kill (Hart, 2012), 47-63; also available in the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Law, Society and Economy Working Paper Series, WPS 13-2010, February 2010
• Oxford Journal of Legal Studies [2009] 29 (4) 757-786
• International Journal of Constitutional Law 5 [2007] 453; also Spanish translation: 'Ponderación y estructura de los derechos constitucionales', in Gustavo A. Beade and Laura Clérico (eds.), Desafíos a la ponderación, Universidad Externado de Colombia (2011), 79
• Public Law [2006] 457
• 'Abwägungsverbote im Verfassungsrecht' (Prohibitions of Balancing in Constitutional Law) 46 (2007) Der Staat 109-128
• 'Verfassungsgerichtlicher Grundrechtsschutz gegen Gemeinschaftsrecht' (Constitutional Protection against European Community Law) Jura [2006] 91
• 'Der Ehebegriff des Grundgesetzes und die gleichgeschlechtliche Ehe' (The Concept of 'Marriage' under the Basic Law, and Same-Sex Marriage) Die Öffentliche Verwaltung [2005] 64
• 'Selbstmordverhinderung im freiheitlichen Staat' (The Prevention of Suicide, and the Liberal State) Kritische Vierteljahresschrift [2005] 230

'Irgendwie scheint sich ein Teil von mir zurückgezogen zu haben', Welt.de 27 April 2023 (online, paywall)

'Von Maske bis Klima: warum es nötig ist, gegen Sicherheit zu argumentieren', Welt.de 15 March 2023 (online, paywall)

'Das juristische Dilemma der "positiven Diskriminierung"', Welt.de 6 July 2023 (online, paywall)

, Welt.de 5 August 2022 (online; paywall); full pdf here

(‘There are four reasons for compulsory labour – none of them justifies a compulsory social service‘, Welt.de 2 September 2022 (online; paywall); full pdf here

  (‘The overlooked argument in the abortion debate‘), Welt.de 28 June 2022 (online; paywall); full pdf here

('A loss for freedom'), Welt.de 5 May 2022 (online; paywall); full pdf here. 

('Seven compelling arguments against mandatory vaccination'), Welt.de 6 April 2022 (online; paywall); full pdf available here 

('Mandatory vaccination violates the principle of patient autonomy'), print version: Die Welt 15 March 2022, pp. 14-15, online version (paywall); full pdf available here

 (‘The exclusion of unvaccinated people must end’), print version: Die Welt 1 February 2022, pp. 14-15, online version (paywall); full pdf available here

 (‘Lockdown scepticism arrives in the mainstream’), print version: Die Welt 10 January 2022, pp. 14-15, online version (paywall); full pdf available here

 (‘Mandatory vaccination: a violation of human dignity‘), print version: Die Welt 13 December 2021, pp. 14-15, online version (paywall); full pdf available here

 (‘Mandatory vaccination: what about human dignity?’), Deutschlandfunk Kultur  (text and audio)

(‘A conversation between Niko Härting and Kai Möller‘), Podcast Corona im Rechtsstaat (Corona and the rule of law), episode 81 

 ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Religion and Global Society Blog 18 July 2019

Religious and cultural practices can be so deeply entrenched and normalised as to seem unremarkable, even mundane, to those who live by them. In the case of circumcision, a little boy’s reluctance to partake in this particular tradition can be seen by his elders as cute and endearing, but ultimately silly and juvenile. Reflecting on a recent case, Kai Möller challenges this comfortable reading. He suggests instead that the child was agonising over an impending violation which the adults around him would not perceive.

 Verfassungsblog 14 June 2018

ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ EUROPP 6 March 2018

A proposal to ban circumcision for non-medical reasons in Iceland has generated a heated debate over whether banning the practice would amount to an attack on religious freedom. Kai Möller outlines his own opposition to male circumcision, and argues in favour of an open debate over the issue in which both sides are respected and there is an attempt to reach common ground.

 ('A matter of dignity'), Süddeutsche Zeitung 5 July 2017, p. 2.

The essay argues that the introduction of same sex marriage in Germany does not require an amendment to the Constitution. Article 6 of the Basic Law, which protects marriage, should be interpreted in line with the fundamental values of the Constitution, namely human dignity, freedom, and equality. This leads to the conclusion that same sex marriage is not only permissible but obligatory under the Basic Law.