GLOBAL CONSTITUTION IN THE MAKING?
By: Constance Cumbey
January 23, 2007
NewsWithViews.com
". . . there is no doubt that citations to foreign law increasingly surface in U.S. court decisions. . ."[1]
For better or worse, I stumbled on to the New Age Movement with all its related tentacles in 1981. Pursuing it and explaining its ramifications to more incredulous observers has occupied far too much of my time ever since – or so my ever loving husband says. One of my more interesting early discoveries was the significant role California’s Stanford University was playing in all of this. That role has not diminished.
Today, on a routine legal search that led me to a Stanford Law Review source, I accidentally discovered even more. While looking for case law on the more mundane wrongful demolition law, I discovered Stanford was playing a serious current role in redefining and/or ending traditional American constitutional protections. This is being done under the very bad disguise of claiming to bring American protections to other nations. By adopting some of their reasoning, the Stanford position goes, they will be inspired to adopt more of ours! Stanford is indeed playing a very heavy role in bringing global government -- oops, “global governance” -- to pass.
Stanford Law Review and its Center for Constitutional Law are holding a February 16, 2007 midwinter event with an oxmoryonic title: “Global Constitutionalism.” Stanford University and its law school will relieve the midwinter blahs of global judges, scholars, politicians, and others with one of the most blatant final pushes down the world government birth canal to date.
Perhaps the best way to explain this might be as its prospectus nakedly appears on Stanford University Law School;s own website:
“Discourse and thought about constitutional norms increasingly transcend national borders and founding documents. Spirited debate has arisen within the United States about whether and how foreign law should be utilized for purposes of construing the U.S. Constitution, but there is no doubt that citations to foreign law increasingly surface in U.S. court decisions. Less attention has been paid, however, to the larger interplay between the constitutional norms of the U.S. and other nations. What role does the U.S. Constitution play in other nations’ interpretations of their own constitutions? To what extent is that role impacted by the perceived willingness, or lack thereof, of the U.S. to look to other nations’ constitutions? What are the constitutional benchmarks for nations constructing new constitutions and how do such nations choose between them in the face of divergence? What can nations learn from one another about common constitutional controversies—such as those surrounding security initiatives as they may impact civil liberties and larger constitutional norms? This Symposium will explore these questions, gathering prominent scholars, practitioners, and judges from the U.S. and abroad in order to do so. The unifying theme will be the manner in which constitutionalism is developing, and should develop, around the world as viewed from the perspective of the U.S. and other nations with their own proud and distinct constitutional traditions.
“Stanford Law School has long played a leading role in the study of both constitutional and international law. Similarly, its alumni, from Sandra Day O’Connor to Warren Christopher, have played leading roles in promoting constitutional norms and commitment to rule of law within a larger international framework. This Symposium . . . bring together key participants in this global conversation. Foremost among the goals of the symposium is to generate scholarship and dialogue that represent international and varied perspectives, with contributors from various different countries.”
Well, a rose by any other name is still a rose – and so’s a skunk. Sandra Day O’Connor as joined by Justices Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and a separate concurring opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer decided in 2003 to “think outside the box” – the USA Constitution’s box, that is – by relying on opinions by the European Court of Human Rights. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote the majority opinion then for a 5-4 majority. That opinion abolished state prohibitions on private, consensual homosexual conduct.[2]
Well, I knew about Sandra Day O’Connor’s yoga classes – a common New Age entry point as admitted by another heavily Stanford University and Stanford Research Institute (SRI) mentored person, Marilyn Ferguson. Marilyn Ferguson was the protégé of SRI’s Willis Harman. Harman was also known to New Age Movement researchers as one of the leaders of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Willis Harman, SRI’s director of policy research, was one of Marilyn Ferguson’s most quoted sources about the Old Left/New Age spirituality marriage – one that promised to result, he said, in “a social and historic phenomena as great and pervasive as the Protestant Reformation.[3]
What an incredibly clever path to global government more frequently known as “global governance”! To be the subject of a future article is New York University’s law school and its equally activist role in bringing the constitutional rights of Americans to a soon anticipated end.
What a clever rationale – they won’t adopt our constitutional norms unless we first adopt theirs. What clever timing! Mid-February when winter blahs or tropical heats have overtaken much of the world and a mild Palo Alto California weekend at palisades of palm lined Stanford University private roads. Combine this with an opportunity to rub elbows with prominent “scholars” and world judiciary and political figures. I can hear the amen chorus to the punches already telegraphed by the Stanford organizers (who incidentally, even as I composed this article, removed the link from on-line). They had a similar seminar in 2003. That one, by invitation only, was entitled “Constitutionalism in the EU.[4] Like this one and the AOL “eminent personalities” panel, I didn’t get my invitation to that event either.
Apart from “Global Constitutionalism” and promoting Marilyn Ferguson and her “Aquar-ian Conspiracy,” Stanford has also been an interesting player in the simultaneous advancement and USA concealment of another person I have long studied, Dr. Javier So-lana and his blossoming career. Under the auspices of their Hoover Institution they published what was supposed to be a comprehensive NATO history. That book shamelessly urged increasing USA surrender to EU aspirations. Curious that the most powerful figure in NATO’s history was barely mentioned in the book (there was one word – count ‘em, one in that book – a last name without explanation only). I interviewed Dr. Peter Duignan, the book’s ebullient author on my former Detroit area radio program. He was happy to participate until I asked him why he had omitted Dr. Solana. He literally stuttered -- “b-b-b-because he’s so insignificant.” Then Dr. Duignan refused to return to the air after the station break. I spent the balance of the program reading my audience evidences for why Dr. Solana was not an insignificant NATO secretary general. The Stanford based Dr. Duignan had spent the time I had given him on air promoting USA support of the EU’s remilitarization which was plainly taking place under Duignan’s invisible man, Javier Solana.
Stanford University and its law school are playing an interesting game. So is New York University which frequently sponsors its own “global governance” events for the high and mighty.[5]
Since I’ve not received my invitation to this forthcoming seminar but since I enjoyed straight A’s in Constitutional Law when I attended law school back in the 1970’s, I thought maybe I would make my input by suggesting a recitation by all USA attendees of the following oath administered to all federal judges and U.S. Military – the Supreme Court justices included:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
Let us hope at least American judicial system participants are not seduced by the fine food, fine wines and fine California weather on February 16th. May they ill wake up and see that “global constitutionalism” is not a part of that oath! May the Lord help us all!
Footnotes:
1, Excerpted from Stanford Law Review and Stanford Center for Constitutional Law brochure announcing forthcoming "Global Constitutionalism" seminar.
2, Global Constitutionalism Stanford University
3, This is the website I found on the google.com search engine, "Thinking Outside the U.S." by Charles Lane. The article appeared on Monday, August 4, 2003, Page A13. The article opens saying: "The Supreme Court is going global - and not just in the sense that several of the justices have embarked on their annual summer voyages to European destinations. Rather the court's own decision-making is beginning to reflect the influence of international legal norms, as well as rulings by courts in foreign countries. . . ."
4, Ferguson, Marilyn. THE AQUARIAN CONSPIRACY: PERSONAL AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION IN THE 1980S.
5 The speaker was one Walter Van Gerven, "IIS Payne Lecturer." It was sponsored under the auspices of the FCE Stanford, "Forum on Contemporary Europe: Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies." The FCI Forum was per "founded in 1997."
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