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A More Global Court? Judicial Transnationalism And The U.S. Supreme Court, Angela G. Narasimhan

Political Science - Dissertations

For many decades, Supreme Court justices and legal scholars have argued over the validity of different tools in constitutional interpretation, including social science data, public opinion and, most recently, laws and standards of decency from abroad. Although several of those currently on the bench maintain that foreign laws have no place in American constitutional adjudication, the larger universe in which their institution operates has become increasingly transnational since the end of the Cold War. The term judicial transnationalism has been coined to describe this phenomenon, characterized by unprecedented levels of interaction and exchange between foreign courts and legal activists. This …