It hardly is surprising that US courts would consider respectfully decisions from other countries regarding "belligerent and neutral rights." The law of war is one of the traditional kinds of international law. Whether decisions from other nations should influence our courts in deciding internal domestic matters is the question we've been discussing, I think. I wonder whether Jack thinks US courts should rethink their abortion jurisprudence in light of the substantially more restrictive approaches taken in most other countries.
Mark S. Scarberry Pepperdine Univ. School of Law -----Original Message----- From: Jack Balkin To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 8/5/2003 12:39 AM Subject: Re: Referring to Foreign Law I recently discovered this outrageous quote from a well known American jurist. I think this man should be immediately impeached: The law of nations is the great source from which we derive those rules, respecting belligerent and neutral rights, which are recognized by all civilized and commercial states throughout Europe and America. This law is in part unwritten, and in part conventional. To ascertain that which is unwritten, we resort to the great principles of reason and justice: but, as these principles will be differently understood by different nations under different circumstances, we consider them as being, in some degree, fixed and rendered stable by a s[e]ries of judicial decisions. The decisions of the Courts of every country, so far as they are founded upon a law common to every country, will be received, not as authority, but with respect. The decisions of the Courts of every country show how the law of nations, in the given case, is understood in that country, and will be considered in adopting the rule which is to prevail in this. Great principles of reason and justice? Receiving decisions of the Courts of every country with respect? My goodness, is there no end this man's anti-Americanism and his rank judicial activism? ;-) Jack Balkin At 12:00 AM 8/5/2003 -0700, you wrote: Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 12:10:04 -0700 From: Robert Sheridan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Referring to Foreign Law MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII I was [a little] surprised to see the objection by Scalia to referring to foreign law as some authority, and, if memory serves, Thomas as well in a different case.
