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Foreign Law And The U.S. Constitution, Kenneth Anderson

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The use of foreign law and unratified international treaty law by U.S. courts in U.S. constitutional adjudication has emerged as a major debate among justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing for a majority approving the practice in the March 2005 decision of Roper v. Simmons, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer undertaking an unusual public discussion of the practice in January 2005 at American University law school. This article examines the arguments made by Justices Kennedy, Scalia, and Breyer for and against the practice, setting them in the broader context of constitutional theory. It …