Looking Beyond Our Borders: The Value of a Comparative Perspective in Constitutional Adjudication

Abstract

In the good job I have had now for some ten years, I try to follow Justice Brandeis' sage counsel: Resist even the irresistible invitation, conserve time for the Court's heavy work. But when Caroline Brown and Peter Rubin asked me to speak at this first national gathering of the American Constitution Society, I just had to accept the invitation because the Society's mission is important to the health and welfare of our Nation. The jurists and students assembled here seek to advance the highest ideals of the Union our Fundamental Instrument of Government establishes: You cherish liberty, and would make equal opportunity and nondiscrimination genuinely this country's law and practice; and you will pursue justice, so that you may thrive.