The attack on "foreign law"

Today's Judiciary Committee hearings on the Sotomayor nomination featured a lot of discussion about the supposed evils of making reference to international law and the law of other countries in constitutional adjudication. At the end of today's proceedings, two conservative law professors delivered statements on this issue; I may have occasion to say more about those statements after I've had a chance to read them (or re-listen to them). Regrettably, the Democrats missed an opportunity to come to the defense, so to speak, of international law and foreign law. They did not invite a witness to counter specifically the testimony of the two law professors I referred to. None of this will affect Sotomayor's confirmation prospects, of course, but it may affect the broader debate on this topic.