Excerpt
SUMMARY: The Supreme Court is often the final say on major domestic conflicts of our time. But what about when foreign law crosses paths with our legal system? Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer joins Judy Woodruff to discuss his new book, "The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities."
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): The Supreme Court of the United States is often the final say on the major domestic conflicts of the day, from voting rights to gay marriage and health care.
But when foreign law crosses paths with our legal system, how should the Supreme Court proceed?
Justice Stephen Breyer, who has served on the court for over two decades, examines this in his new book, “The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities.”
And Justice Breyer joins me now.
Welcome to the NewsHour.
STEPHEN BREYER, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court: Thank you very much.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It’s great to have you with us.
So, with so many complicated issues before this Supreme Court, why did you take the time to focus on how it’s affected by what’s going on in other countries?
STEPHEN BREYER: Well, I have noticed that, over the course of the last 20 years, we have more and more cases, maybe now 15 or 20 percent, where what goes on beyond our shores is directly relevant to our making a sound decision on the American legal question before us.
They range from security problems, Guantanamo, to human rights problems, victims of tortures, to commercial problems, copyright, antitrust, securities law, domestic relations, marriages that are governed by treaty. They’re all over the place.
And I wanted to show people, concretely, in the case of our institution, what that general word, interdependence, means.
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