Kirby: Constitutional Law and International Law: National Exceptionalism and the Democratic Deficit?

Michael Kirby (formerly, Justice, High Court of Australia) has published Constitutional Law and International Law: National Exceptionalism and the Democratic Deficit? (Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 98, no. 2, p. 433, January 2010). Here's an excerpt:

The subject of this lecture is how we are reconciling the democratic features of our constitutionalism with one of the most powerful forces for change in the law today. I refer to the rapid advance of international law and especially of the international law of human rights. Necessarily, this latter development derives from institutions and processes that answer to a constituency beyond the democracy of the nationstate. One of the challenges before every legal system in the current age is how to accommodate the continuing role of the nation-state with the international order as it is emerging, and how to reconcile the functions, powers, and dignity of national courts with international law, including as that law is declared by international and regional courts and other relevant decision-making bodies.