Foreign Law and Legal Development

Duke Law School's 9th annual Bernstein lecture (2010) was given by Professor John Bell of the University of Cambridge Law School. His subject was "The Relevance of Foreign Examples to Legal Development." The lecture addressed three claims: governance through law is a universal and global activity and therefore its application cannot be confined to a specific jurisdiction; institutional activities of legislating and deciding cases are part of a conversation that extends beyond jurisdictional boundaries; and arguments based on foreign experience have only a limited persuasive status in national legal reasoning and therefore require discussion at a general rather than specific level. You can download the video of the lecture on Duke Law's iTunesU page or directly from the Duke Law site.