2017 Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award Keynote Address

In a keynote address delivered at the 2017 Wolfgang Friedman Memorial Award, Breyer discusses issues associated with translational or international law, including globalization, regionalism and localism and how judges and lawyers solve problems. He believes that lawyers and judges need to know and understand the cases and what is going on outside the U.S. in order for them to resolve problems under American law. He said that the problem is not politics but how do lawyers and judges deal with a legal difficulty that could be of commerce, marriage, human rights and child custody. He stressed the need to refer to foreign events or foreign law outside the U.S. when discussing the meaning of the Constitution. He noted that American attitudes can only be explained to people by showing them the state of the world and that lawyers need to learn how to deal with the world through cooperation.