Corcoran, Suzanne --- "Internationalisation and Statutory Interpretation – Looking Wide and Looking Deep" [2010] ELECD 418; in Hiscock, Mary; van Caenegem, William (eds), "The Internationalisation of Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: The Internationalisation of Law

Editor(s): Hiscock, Mary; van Caenegem, William

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849801027

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: Internationalisation and Statutory Interpretation – Looking Wide and Looking Deep

Author(s): Corcoran, Suzanne

Number of pages: 17

Extract:

2. Internationalisation and statutory
interpretation ­ looking wide and
looking deep
Suzanne Corcoran*

This chapter argues that a more dynamic perspective on statutory inter-
pretation is necessary in order to properly accommodate the impact of glo-
balisation and comparative scholarship on the writing of statutes. The fact
that most law these days is statute based is universally recognised. The fact
that transnational developments and comparative analysis are a factor
in the writing of legislation is also an easily demonstrated reality. Many
would argue that it has ever been so. What is more difficult and more prob-
lematic is the question of why all of this front end `international influence'
does not make it out the back end. Why is it that statutory interpretation,
at least in Australia (and also I think in the United States) seems to suffer
from a much more parochial frame of mind? There is a complicating (or
enriching) factor in the relationship of globalisation and legislative draft-
ing and policy that gets lost on the way to litigation and interpretation. If
we are going to bridge that gap, we first must understand that it is there.
Professor Mary Ann Glendon, a professor of comparative law, has
identified a similar situation with statutory interpretation in the United
States and lamented the inability of American lawyers to recognise that
their skills with legislation are primitive.1 She sees this disability in draft-
ing, analysing and interpreting legislation as something American lawyers
seem largely unaware of. She tells the story ...