I began this book by observing that in the period since the end of the Second World War, there has emerged what never before existed: a truly global political morality. That morality – the morality of human rights – consists both of a fundamental imperative, which is the normative ground of human rights, and of various rights recognized by the great majority of the countries of the world as human rights. Some of the morality of human rights is entrenched – some of the rights internationally recognized as human rights are entrenched – in the constitutional law of the United States. I have focused in this book on three such rights, and on three large constitutional controversies, each of which implicates at least one of the three rights.

These are the conclusions I have reached:

• Punishing a criminal by killing him violates the right not to be subjected to “cruel and unusual” punishment, and the Supreme Court of the United States should so rule – that is, even proceeding in a Thayerian mode the Court should so rule.

• Even if, as I have suggested, the exclusion policy – excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage – does not violate the right to moral equality, the policy does violate the right to religious and moral freedom, and the Court should so rule.

• Unlike a relatively permissive ban on abortion of the sort that was at issue in Doe v. Bolton, an extreme ban on abortion, such as the ban the Court struck down in Roe v. Wade, violates both the right to moral equality and the right to religious and moral freedom.