Why do we care about foreign law?
There are a number of reasons transnational law is relevant for ‘domestic’ lawyers. With companies now ‘based’ in one country, manufacturing goods in another, and selling into yet another, and terrorism increasingly requiring a co-ordinated transnational response, we’ve really had no other choice but to start thinking transnationally – with often quite interesting results. Courts can also use foreign law (though more controversially) in various ways when applying similar domestic/constitutional/internationally inspired provisions – see, eg, the discussion of US norms in Australian constitutional cases. After beginning to understand what transnational law is all about, I guess the next question is why are we bothering to think about it at all. What I found quite interesting, however, is the increasing need for transnational law and transnational lawyers due to an increase in transnational transactions. As NGOs, business and civil society spread their operations across countries and into strange legal spaces (crossing borders and jurisdictions), the law has necessarily had to play catch up and work out what law applies and how the law works when applied to these novel (though increasingly less so) transactions. For example, lawmakers are often inspired by how other countries deal with problems – see, eg, the influence of UK anti-terror legislation around the world.
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