NYT: Justice Ginsburg Backs Value of Foreign Law

[tofubo]

www.nytimes.com

By ANNE E. KORNBLUT
Published: April 2, 2005

ASHINGTON, April 1 - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court embraced the practice of consulting foreign legal decisions on Friday, rejecting the argument from conservatives that United States law should not take international thinking into account.

After a strongly worded dissent in a juvenile death penalty case from Justice Antonin Scalia last month that accused the court of putting too much faith in international opinion, Justice Ginsberg said the United States system should, if anything, consider international law more often.

"Judges in the United States are free to consult all manner of commentary," she said in a speech to several hundred lawyers and scholars here Friday.

She cited several instances when the logic of foreign courts had been applied to help untangle legal questions domestically, and of legislatures and courts abroad adopting United States law.

Fears about relying too heavily on world opinion "should not lead us to abandon the effort to learn what we can from the experience and good thinking foreign sources may convey," Justice Ginsburg told members of the American Society of International Law.

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for all those that don't want foreign rulings and law to be introduced into our court proceedings, i nominate that we removed the bible as a consultative tome when OUR judges interpret the constitution, it being from old europe and origionally written in a different language and all

but we have the english language king james version you ask
didn't we have a war to get out being under the rule of someones version on any particular religion, among other oppressive reasons ??

[ugarte]

1. Right wingers just want the commercial aspects of globalism

Free exchange of goods without an exchange of people and ideas.
It just doesn't work that way.