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Not to be an alarmist, but our very identity as self-governing Americans is very much at risk from the growing "transnationalist" movement that would apply foreign law to domestic situations or to American citizens. My Examiner column today explains. It follows upon our Examiner editorial on Sunday that takes issues with the nomination of Yale Law Dean Harold Koh to be chief counsel at the State Department. The person who has done almost certainly the most thorough job outlining the powerful case against Koh is Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, writing at NRO's Bench Memos. (Be sure to follow the internal links at the bottom of that linked post!)

Also good at NRO on these topics have been Matthew Frank and Andy McCarthy. Also good elsewhere have been Heritage's Steven Groves and the Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney (sorry -- not enough time to dig up all the rest of the links).

Of course, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven Breyer have been particularly outspoken about their support for citations of foreign law in U.S. cases. This is bad stuff.

It must be acknowledged that the new Spanish inquisition I described in my column involves a slightly different issue than that being pushed by Ginsburg and Breyer. But it's all of the same general cut of cloth. Conservatives need to fight this trend for all we're worth.