Supreme Court’s Global Influence Is Waning

[AlCzervik]

By ADAM LIPTAK
WASHINGTON — Judges around the world have long looked to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court for guidance, citing and often following them in hundreds of their own rulings since the Second World War.

But now American legal influence is waning. Even as a debate continues in the court over whether its decisions should ever cite foreign law, a diminishing number of foreign courts seem to pay attention to the writings of American justices.

“One of our great exports used to be constitutional law,” said Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. “We are losing one of the greatest bully pulpits we have ever had.”

From 1990 through 2002, for instance, the Canadian Supreme Court cited decisions of the United States Supreme Court about a dozen times a year, an analysis by The New York Times found. In the six years since, the annual citation rate has fallen by half, to about six.

Australian state supreme courts cited American decisions 208 times in 1995, according to a recent study by Russell Smyth, an Australian economist. By 2005, the number had fallen to 72.

The story is similar around the globe, legal experts say, particularly in cases involving human rights. These days, foreign courts in developed democracies often cite the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in cases concerning equality, liberty and prohibitions against cruel treatment, said Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of the Yale Law School. In those areas, Dean Koh said, “they tend not to look to the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The rise of new and sophisticated constitutional courts elsewhere is one reason for the Supreme Court’s fading influence, legal experts said. The new courts are, moreover, generally more liberal that the Rehnquist and Roberts courts and for that reason more inclined to cite one another.

Another reason is the diminished reputation of the United States in some parts of the world, which experts here and abroad said is in part a consequence of the Bush administration’s unpopularity around the world. Foreign courts are less apt to justify their decisions with citations to cases from a nation unpopular with their domestic audience.

“It’s not surprising, given our foreign policy in the last decade or so, that American influence should be declining,” said Thomas Ginsburg, who teaches comparative and international law at the University of Chicago.

Time to restore honor and dignity back to the whitehouse--please

[Mojorabbit]

1. I can't wait till they are gone.

This administration has done more harm than anything I could ever have imagined in my worst dreams.

[AlCzervik]

2. yup. I find the whole article pretty depressing, we aren't who we used to be.

[tritsofme]

5. Unfortunately, Messrs. Roberts and Alito aren't going anywhere

for quite a long time.

[lonestarnot]

3. All we have coming out of there is unitary executiveism. Fuck it! People are sick of us!

[fascisthunter]

4. Time to Find A Way to Get Rid of These Right Wing Judges

they have no business in our government.

[Orsino]

6. Kangaroo courts get no love in Australia, either.

These furriners can smell fail, even if Americans are blissfully unaware.