The Supreme Court’s Influence Abroad

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems to misunderstand the proper role of the Supreme Court:

She added that the failure to engage foreign decisions had resulted in diminished influence for the United States Supreme Court.

The Canadian Supreme Court, she said, is “probably cited more widely abroad than the U.S. Supreme Court.” There is one reason for that, she said: “You will not be listened to if you don’t listen to others.”

The Supreme Court does not exist, however, so that its rulings might be influential in foreign courts or cited favorably abroad. Instead, the Constitution empowers the federal courts to judge cases, not to curry favor; Publius elaborates on these “proper objects” of the “federal judicature” in The Federalist. Furthermore, each Supreme Court justice takes an oath “that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [title] under the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

In “faithfully and impartially discharg[ing] and perform[ing]” these duties, the court can serve as a model to the world. But this is a happy consequence of sound judicial decision-making, and ought not to be the justices’ aim, as Ginsburg suggests. The justices’ duty is first and foremost to uphold “the Constitution and laws of the United States,” even if this means their peers overseas disapprove of their reasoning or the results.

Justices who seek citation by foreign courts might consider a career in academia instead of on the bench. There they can focus their energies on analyzing court cases from anywhere in the world without any fear of abrogating their responsibilities to America’s Constitution and laws.