Abstract: Twenty years ago, talk of American exceptionalism in the field of human rights would doubtless have been tinged, at least, with congratulation; these days, maybe not. Spoken today, the term probably insinuates a degree, at least, of insularity and smugness.¹ Consider the movement dubbed “judicial globalization” by one of its chroniclers.² Ever more widely and regularly, judiciaries in democracies abroad have been treating each other’s judgments as required reading in the work of domestic or regional bill-of-rights adjudication. From this movement the American Supreme Court has stood noticeably aloof, thus earning itself a mildly pariah status, at least in globalist