Book Description

"Intolerant Justice examines how national legal systems handle dilemmas of international cooperation: Should our citizens stand trial in foreign courts that do not meet our standards? Should we extradite offenders to countries with a poor human rights record? Should we enforce rulings issued by foreign judges whose values are different from our own? This book argues that ethnocentrism - the human tendency to divide the world into superior in-groups and inferior out-groups - fuels fear and mistrust of foreign justice and sparks domestic political controversies: while skeptics portray foreign legal systems as a danger and threat, others dismiss these concerns. The book traces this dynamic in a range of cases, including the American hesitation to allow criminal trials of troops in the courts of NATO countries; the debate over the proper venue for trying Europeans who joined ISIS as foreign fighters; the dilemma of extradition to China; the British debate over extradition to the U.S. and the EU; the European wariness toward U.S. civil judgments; the American-British divide over free speech and libel suits; the establishment of mutual legal assistance treaties; and cooperation against child abduction. Despite the growing role of law and courts in international politics, Intolerant Justice suggests that cooperation among legal systems often meets resistance - and it shows how this resistance can be overcome"--