Judicial Globalization in the Service of Self-Government‪.‬

For at least the past several decades, judges around the world have been looking beyond their own states' jurisprudence to international law and the decisions of foreign courts in order to apply domestic law. This widespread practice is part of a phenomenon that Anne-Marie Slaughter calls "judicial globalization." (1) The American judiciary, however, has exhibited a distinct diffidence toward the use of comparative and international law to decide domestic cases, a diffidence that extends to many elected officials as well. To a non-American audience, opposition to judicial borrowing of international and comparative legal materials might appear mystifying. Outside the United States, judicial globalization of this sort is all but taken for granted. Leading national courts in this regard cut across all imaginable lines: India, Canada, Zimbabwe, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Botswana all borrow from legal sources outside their borders. Some states, most notably South Africa, constitutionally require reference to international and comparative law for domestic interpretation. Last and here not least, other states frequently cite the case law of the U.S. Supreme Court, including, among others, the Irish Supreme Court and the U.K. House of Lords. (2)