Harold Hongju Koh Quotes
If the United States isn’t keeping pace with the rest of the civilized world, then for its own good it needs to change.
Harold Koh, Dean of the Yale Law School, Referring to consideration of American courts of the opinions of the courts of other countries, Quoted in “What Would Zimbabwe Do?” The Atlantic November 2005
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
There is a school of thought that argues that American courts should NEVER look at the opinions of foreign courts. They argue that our legal system is determined by the Constitution and American Laws as well as the English Common Law. They believe that no consideration or weight should by given to court opinions even from Canada or Australia. Most jurists agree with Breyer. Foreign legal precedents should be examined to see what might be learned but should not be determinatitive.
See {586437} for a Supreme Court Justice’s view of the matter.
10 centuries ago was a time when the Arabs were far more advanced and modern than other cultures including the Christian West that was in the Dark Ages. However, in the 12th century there was a “closing”—a narrowing of allowable Islamic thinking, and since then, Islamic people have had great difficulty with change or modernity. Not all Muslim nations are equally rigid but the Arabs are at the extreme among Islamic counties.
While this type of modernization had been a theme of her reign, it was particularly fascinating at this time when China had been invaded by Japan and 7 Western Countries, she still argued that the only way for China to thrive and attain true independence was to reform and adopt many Western Ways. Chinese leader after her gave lip service to doing this but never wanted to implement the reforms lest the lose power. Ironically, it was under Communist leader Deng Xiaoping, 1904-1993, that Cixi’s notion of adopting modern Western economic and technological models and approaches was finally implemented and then China made the greatest improvement of any large society ever in a relatively short term. However, Deng stopped short of adopting Western notions of political freedom.
Harold Hongju Koh is an American lawyer and legal scholar who served as the legal adviser of the Department of State in the Obama administration. He was nominated to this position by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2009, and confirmed by the Senate on June 25, 2009. He left the State Department in January 2013, returning to Yale University as a Sterling Professor of international law.
