Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon is a tremendous scholar and intellectual. Her op-ed on the Supreme Court's use of foreign law in interpreting the US Constitution is a must read. Money quote:
The problem is not reference to foreign law: It is how foreign law is used by judges who usurp powers reserved under the Constitution to the people and their elected representatives, and whose desire to "learn" is limited to finding arguments in support of conclusions that have little constitutional warrant. The learning process of the foreign law enthusiasts, moreover, is selective. They have shown no disposition to explore why most democracies take a different view from theirs on exclusion of illegally obtained evidence, regulation of abortion or separation of church and state. With reason, Justice Scalia accuses them of "looking over the heads of the crowd and picking out their friends."
