Slicing the American Pie: Federalism and Personal Law

Slicing the American Pie: Federalism and
Personal Law
Jeffrey A. Redding
Abstract

In this piece, I draw upon Indian and other comparative legal experience to argue
that the present U.S. system of territorial federalism resonates deeply with those
systems of “personal law” that are commonly found around the world. Under a
personal law system, a state enforces different laws for each of the state’s different
religious or ethnic communities - which is one reason such systems have
been so heavily interrogated by U.N. and other international organisations for
their human rights implications. Similarly, as well, U.S. First Amendment jurisprudence
has frowned upon the carving out of religious-group exceptions to
generally-applicable law. That being said, the U.S. Supreme Court has also recently
given renewed emphasis to state sovereignty and other federal values. As
this piece argues, what results from this worship of federalism is a truly Americanstyle
personal law system, where territorial communities have taken the place of
other personal law systems’ religious and ethnic communal constituencies. This
being the case, I conclude by questioning recent innovations in American constitutional
jurisprudence which devalue religious pluralism, while simultaneously
elevating territorial communalism. more please download here