L’usage des jurisprudences étrangères dans les tribunaux américains. Un débat ?

C’est un "vieux" message (septembre 2004) de Lyonette Louis Jacques sur la liste Int-Law qui traîne dans ma rubrique "à commenter". Il s’agit d’un échange (fructueux) d’articles de doctrine sur l’usage et l’influence de la jurisprudence étrangère (non-US) pour les tribunaux américains.

Cet aspect du débat est d’autant plus intéressant, que, de notre point de vue européenne, la puissance de la common law, nous fait plutôt craindre l’inverse. Il est donc rafraîchissant de voir ici un autre aspect de la discussion.

Envoyé : vendredi 10 septembre 2004 00:04
À : Foreign & International Legal Research
Objet : INT-LAW U.S. courts and foreign and international legal decisions (the debate)

Hi all - I found a couple more articles on this issue of whether or not U.S. courts should cite or look to foreign and international law :

No Thanks, We Already Have Our Own Laws

The court should never view a foreign legal decision as a precedent in any way. By Richard Posner http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/...

Yes Please, I’d Love to Talk With You

The court has learned from the rest of the world before. It should continue to do so. By Vicki Jackson http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/...

Foreign Exchange : Should the Supreme Court care what other countries think ? By Tim Wu Posted Friday, April 9, 2004, at 2:03 PM PT http://slate.msn.com/id/2098559/

******* Je ne résiste pas à citer un passage de ce très intéressant article :
It’s become a bit of a Punch and Judy show : Just about every time the court cites foreign materials, Scalia and/or Clarence Thomas dissent. In the words of Scalia, "The views of other nations, however enlightened the Justices of this Court may think them to be, cannot be imposed upon Americans through the Constitution." Or, to quote Thomas on the subject, "This court should not impose foreign moods, fads, or fashions on Americans."

Contemporary objections to the use of foreign precedent have a long pedigree in American politics : There’s always been a simmering fear of foreigners tainting our leaders. In the 1790s, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were accused of being more English or French than American, respectively, after spending time abroad. Today, the fear is that Sandra Day O’Connor or Anthony Kennedy-after one too many global judicial conferences-will go the way of Justice Stephen Breyer and become hopelessly intoxicated by foreign ways.

************

Appropriate role of foreign judgments in the interpretation of American law :
hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eighth Congress, second session, on H. Res. 568, March 25, 2004. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi...

Mentioned on INT-LAW before :

JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA : LIVING IN ANOTHER WORLD
Professor Ali Khan Washburn University School of Law
JURIST Contributing Editor

March 29, 2004

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[From: Helen Pringle / Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 16:31:47 +1000->http://listhost.ciesin.org/lists/public/int-law/msg01383.html" class="spip_url spip_out">http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/kh...

> >Hi all - I found a couple more articles on this issue of whether or not > >U.S. courts should cite or look to foreign and international law :

Also of interest ?

House Resolution of 17 March :

http://www.house.gov/feeney/downloa...

(via http://www.house.gov/feeney/reaffir...)

Also see 28 October 2003 speech of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to Southern Center for International Studies : http://www.southerncenter.org/OConn...

Are these the main "suspect" cases, or are there others ie in the last 3 years or so ?

 Atkins v Virginia
 Grutter v Bollinger
 Gratz v Bollinger
 Lawrence v Texas

Apologies if you have already noted these.

Helen

PS not on foreign law as such, but my favourite Scalia "wobbly" :

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opini...

"If one assumes, however, that the PGA Tour has some legal obligation to play classic, Platonic golf-and if one assumes the correctness of all the other wrong turns the Court has made to get to this point-then we Justices must confront what is indeed an awesome responsibility. It has been rendered the solemn duty of the Supreme Court of the United States, laid upon it by Congress in pursuance of the Federal Government’s power "[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States," to decide What Is Golf. I am sure that the Framers of the Constitution, aware of the 1457 edict of King James II of Scotland prohibiting golf because it interfered with the practice of archery, fully expected that sooner or later the paths of golf and government, the law and the links, would once again cross, and that the judges of this august Court would some day have to wrestle with that age-old jurisprudential question, for which their years of study in the law have so well prepared them : Is someone riding around a golf course from shot to shot really a golfer ? The answer, we learn, is yes. The Court ultimately concludes, and it will henceforth be the Law of the Land, that walking is not a "fundamental" aspect of golf."