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Referring To Foreign Law In Constitutional Interpretation: An Episode In The Culture Wars, Mark V. Tushnet
Referring To Foreign Law In Constitutional Interpretation: An Episode In The Culture Wars, Mark V. Tushnet
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
As Judge Messitte's essay demonstrates, recent references in Supreme Court decisions to non-U.S. legal materials have generated a great deal of controversy. Those who make such references say that doing so is no big deal. I have called the controversy a tempest in a teapot. My topic here is the disjuncture between the perception on one side that something important and troubling has happened - or, as I will argue, may be about to happen - and the perception on the other that there is nothing to be concerned about. After describing in Section I the practice that has given …
"A Decent Respect To The Opinions Of Mankind": Referring To Foreign Law To Express American Nationhood, Mark V. Tushnet
"A Decent Respect To The Opinions Of Mankind": Referring To Foreign Law To Express American Nationhood, Mark V. Tushnet
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Why might a court refer to non-U.S. law? Justice Stephen Breyer's pragmatic defense of the practice is probably the most widely known, as are its defects. Here, I want to sketch a counterintuitive explanation for the practice. Referring to non-U.S. law in Supreme Court opinions might be a way in which Supreme Court Justices participate in the dissemination of a distinctively American self-understanding. By this I do not mean that Justices who refer to non-U.S. law necessarily endorse the (reasonable) interpretive theory that the U.S. Constitution instantiates universally true propositions of political morality. Rather, I mean that references to non-U.S. …
When Is Knowing Less Better Than Knowing More? Unpacking The Controversy Over Supreme Court Reference To Non-U.S. Law, Mark V. Tushnet
When Is Knowing Less Better Than Knowing More? Unpacking The Controversy Over Supreme Court Reference To Non-U.S. Law, Mark V. Tushnet
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
My goal in this Essay is simply to lay out the criticisms of the use of non-U.S. law in constitutional interpretation, so as to identify what might be correct (not much, in the end) in those criticisms. I discuss criticisms based on theories of interpretation, on the claim that reference to non-U.S. law is merely decoration playing no role in generating outcomes, on the role the Constitution has in expressing distinctively American values, and on the proposition that judges are unlikely to do a good job in understanding - and therefore in referring to - non-U.S. law. This last "quality-control" …