Supreme Court's Global Influence Fading

[Frodo]

Supreme Court’s Global Influence Is Waning

By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: September 17, 2008

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.

The adamant opposition of some Supreme Court justices to the citation of foreign law in their own opinions also plays a role, some foreign judges say.

“Most justices of the United States Supreme Court do not cite foreign case law in their judgments,” Aharon Barak, then the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, wrote in the Harvard Law Review in 2002. “They fail to make use of an important source of inspiration, one that enriches legal thinking, makes law more creative, and strengthens the democratic ties and foundations of different legal systems.”

Partly as a consequence, Chief Justice Barak wrote, the United States Supreme Court “is losing the central role it once had among courts in modern democracies.”
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[Joe Republic]

Perhaps a concert might improve public awareness?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

This group of hacks had a pretty big influence on who became the 43rd President of the United States.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

This group of hacks had a pretty big influence on who became the 43rd President of the United States.

First of all, only 7 of the 9 Justices still on the Court voted on Bush v. Gore.  Second of all, except for Thomas, none of the members of the Court in 2000, or in 2008, are hacks.  They are all extremely qualified for their positions.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This group of hacks had a pretty big influence on who became the 43rd President of the United States.

First of all, only 7 of the 9 Justices still on the Court voted on Bush v. Gore.  Second of all, except for Thomas, none of the members of the Court in 2000, or in 2008, are hacks.  They are all extremely qualified for their positions.

[ChrisFromNJ]

This is what happens when the court is full of far right justices.

[A18]

Now if only its domestic influence would "fade."

The job of the Supreme Court is to interpret the laws and Constitution of the United States; not to draft the world's best-selling treatise on political theory.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

This group of hacks had a pretty big influence on who became the 43rd President of the United States.

First of all, only 7 of the 9 Justices still on the Court voted on Bush v. Gore.  Second of all, except for Thomas, none of the members of the Court in 2000, or in 2008, are hacks.  They are all extremely qualified for their positions.

Why, because I'm defending the SCOTUS from wrong attacks?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

This group of hacks had a pretty big influence on who became the 43rd President of the United States.

First of all, only 7 of the 9 Justices still on the Court voted on Bush v. Gore.  Second of all, except for Thomas, none of the members of the Court in 2000, or in 2008, are hacks.  They are all extremely qualified for their positions.

Why, because I'm defending the SCOTUS from wrong attacks?

Anyone defending Bush v. Gore is a total DINO.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

This group of hacks had a pretty big influence on who became the 43rd President of the United States.

First of all, only 7 of the 9 Justices still on the Court voted on Bush v. Gore.  Second of all, except for Thomas, none of the members of the Court in 2000, or in 2008, are hacks.  They are all extremely qualified for their positions.

Why, because I'm defending the SCOTUS from wrong attacks?

Anyone defending Bush v. Gore is a total DINO.

I'm not defending Bush v. Gore, I'm defending the Justices themselves.

[minionofmidas]

The US Supreme Court had a global influence once?

Sorry, but that's news to me.
The US Supreme Court, with its strange dual role as highest court in the appeals chain and special constitutional court, is an archaic relic that is at least sixty years past its due date.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The US Supreme Court had a global influence once?

Sorry, but that's news to me.
The US Supreme Court, with its strange dual role as highest court in the appeals chain and special constitutional court, is an archaic relic that is at least sixty years past its due date.

This is a valid point. The USSC is unlike any other court in the world in this sense.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

This is what happens when the court is full of far right justices.

Hardly.

[A18]

Strangeness is relative; archaicness presupposes the former. But more to the point, what does either have to do with SCOTUS's "global influence" (or lack thereof)?

Edit: Fixed grammatical error.

[Јas]

The US Supreme Court had a global influence once?

Sorry, but that's news to me.
The US Supreme Court, with its strange dual role as highest court in the appeals chain and special constitutional court, is an archaic relic that is at least sixty years past its due date.

While the British courts have always be (and are likely to remain) the strongest foreign influence on Irish jurisprudence, the other Anglophone common law jurisdictions are cited occasionally, including the US. (I presume the same can be said of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.)

I recall that after Griswold was cited in an Irish judgment on the right to privacy, the decision in Roe spurred the pro-life movement here into life fearing similar developments here.

(The Irish Supreme Court would also seem to fit the dual role you describe as well though.)

[minionofmidas]

The US Supreme Court had a global influence once?

Sorry, but that's news to me.
The US Supreme Court, with its strange dual role as highest court in the appeals chain and special constitutional court, is an archaic relic that is at least sixty years past its due date.

This is a valid point. The USSC is unlike any other court in the world in this sense.

Hardly "unlike any other". Lots of similar courts in former British colonies and in South America. It's just that there's two models around, and countries thinking about which model to ape in the past few decades have in the vast majority of cases opted for the other one, with very good reason.
I suppose quoting from another court's decision makes sense only when the legal framework is similar, and makes more sense if the other decision doesn't have to be translated first.

[A18]

That's probably more a product of the civil-law tradition than anything else.

Citing the opinions of another court makes sense when the relevant principles of law are similar. Here, we're talking principally about civil-liberties issues, which have little to do with structure.