Professor John Bell of the University of Cambridge Law School gave the 9th annual Bernstein lecture at Duke University Law School on Feb. 23, 2010. The subject was "The Relevance of Foreign Examples to Legal Development." Bell makes 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.
The lecture is available with RealAudio, downloadable as a video through iTunes or just audio.
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