TW: I posted on an article from NYT on 9/20 "US Losing Influence...". The topic was the dimunition of American law in international courts. Tom Barnett addresses the same article below.
From Tom Barnett: "Simplest explanation: Bush-Cheney have so decredentialized our judicial system with their war on terror tactics that we have ceded the judicial high ground on human rights to the EU, whose courts now are cited more by Canada and Australia, two good bellwethers, while our courts are cited dramatically less.
Also, it's a flatter, more competitive landscape as more sophisticated alternatives spring up, but still, the loss of influence--true rule-set exportation--is stunning.
The secondary answer is that our own, increasingly conservative Supreme Court is growing in its hubris: simply refusing to acknowledge both this trend and any perceived utility in citing the legal advances of others.
Rhenquist believed in learning from foreign courts, and argued for it, but Roberts, Scalia and Alito are all hostile.
This is arrogance of the worst sort.
We are an exceptional people in an exceptional country, and we invent new rules better than just about anybody, but thinking we own a monopoly there is self-limiting nonsense, and patently anti-common law in a globalization process."http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/us/18legal.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1221692558-0sLo8sTmJP5BGxGQYvFYig
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