Stephen Breyer, The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities (New York: Knopf, 2015) (“This brings us to perhaps the most pertinent reason for attempting to address today’s transnational problems through law: any success in that effort helps to advance the rule of law itself. The rule of law represents the polar opposite of the ‘arbitrary,’ which the dictionary equates with the unjust, the illegal, the unreasonable, the autocratic, the despotic,, and the tyrannical. Like democracy and human rights, the rule of law is something more than an ideological commitment for Americans; it is a sine qua non for our system, and where it does not exist, our interests cannot be secured. At the time of 9/11, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and I were in India, about to discuss the rule of law with Indian jurists. Our reception there made clear to us that the important divisions in the world are not geographical, racial, or religious but between those who believe in a rule of law and those who do not. Jurists across the world help to weave this fabric in their day-to-day work, persisting in their labors even if, in the manner of Penelope’s handiwork what is woven by day sometimes unravels during the night, Yet we continue working, not as politicians but as technicians, hopeful but uncertain of success, Id. at 283-284).
