• The words of the Constitution are treated as nearly sacred.

• There might be something that all English-speaking, common law legal systems have in common, but that common core is constantly diminishing. The reason is that each legal culture now has its own constitutional foundation and, in many cases, a transnational set of principles that shape the development of domestic law.

  • Canadian law, both common law and civil law, is governed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, adopted in 1982.

  • English law is subject to both the European Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence of the European Court in Strasbourg. In addition, the United Kingdom is embedded in the regulations and the jurisprudence of the European Union, which generate a common denominator with Continental legal systems.

• In the field of criminal law, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia all support the International Criminal Court.

  • The United States does not. It is clear that in many significant areas of law the United States has departed from the basic assumptions shared by other common law countries.

• Many of the distinctive features of American law are attributable to its constitutional history—dating back to the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution Convention in 1787.

• The war against the British in 1775–1783 was not only a war of independence against a colonial power but also a revolution against the principle of monarchial rule. Yet there was no intent to break with the English legal tradition.

• The belief in an American “exceptionalism,” including a willingness to go to war with their mother country for their rights and equality within their nation, distinguishes Americans from their Canadian neighbors, who only won independence and the “repatriation” of their constitution after two hundred years of participating in the Commonwealth.

  • The basic spirit of American law, therefore, reflects a desire to guard its independence and to cultivate its own constitutional principles.

U.S. Constitution

• The Constitution came into force in 1788 after ratification by nine of the thirteen states. This date marks a point of America’s departure from full membership in the family of common law legal systems.

• The study of American constitutional law provides a bridge to legal traditions based on codification. The claim is that the United States Constitution is a code in much the same sense that the French Code civil and the German Civil Code (BGB) are foundational codes in their respective legal cultures.

  • Every regime tries to leave its mark on the civil code, but the code shakes off these political influences and lives on at the center of the legal culture. The same is true of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution was born in slavery, survived a civil war, but it has continued to live at the center of the American legal culture.