This book provides a new conceptual model for considering constitutional rights from a comparative perspective. A powerful, privately-owned television channel refuses to air an advertisement advocating equal rights for the LGBT community. A prestigious club bars women from standing for executive positions. A homeowner refuses to rent their house to a person on grounds of their race. Each of these real-life cases involves the exercise of private power, which deprives individuals of their rights. Can these individuals invoke the Constitution in response? Horizontal Rights: An Institutional Approach brings a fresh perspective to these age-old, yet fraught issues. This book argues that constitutional scholarship and doctrine, across jurisdictions, has proceeded from an inarticulate premise called -default verticality.- This is based on a set of underlying philosophical assumptions, which presumes that constitutional rights are presumptively applicable against the State, and need spe
