Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2007
Abstract
At least since Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1831, the idea that America is distinctive from other nations has permeated much political and social commentary. The United States has been variously perceived as unique in its history, its culture, its national values, its social movements, and its social and political institutions. While the term technically refers only to distinctiveness or difference, "exceptionalism" may have positive or negative aspects – what Harold Koh has called "America's Jekyll-and-Hyde exceptionalism." In the legal realm, claims of exceptionalism have been offered to support what Michael Ingnatieff identifies as "legal isolationism" – or refusal by domestic courts to consider foreign practices and international legal rules in the construction of U.S. law.
Disciplines
Comparative and Foreign Law | Constitutional Law | Human Rights Law | Law | Law and Race | Law and Society
Recommended Citation
Sarah H. Cleveland,
Foreign Authority, American Exceptionalism, and the Dred Scott Case,
82
Chi.- Kent L. Rev.
393
(2007).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/2214
Included in
Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, Constitutional Law Commons, Human Rights Law Commons, Law and Race Commons, Law and Society Commons