Law Commons^™

Should "Un-American" Foreign Judgments Be Enforced?, Mark D. Rosen

Mark D. Rosen

In an earlier article I demonstrated that American courts are not constitutionally precluded from enforcing foreign judgments based on foreign laws that the Constitution prevents American governments from enacting. (Exporting the Constitution, 53 Emory L. J. 171 (2004)). Consider, for instance, an English defamation judgment based on English law, which is more pro-plaintiff than the First Amendment permits American law to be. I showed that although the English judgment may well be un-American insofar as it come from a non-American polity and reflects political values that are at variance with American constitutional law, neither the judgment itself nor its enforcement …