Justice Anthony Kennedy Lecture Part of Global Constitutionalism Seminar

A packed auditorium of nearly 500 faculty and students gathered September 27 to hear The Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, deliver the 2007 Robert P. Anderson Memorial Lecture. Justice Kennedy, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1988 by President Reagan, spoke about “Constitutions: Structures and Rights” as part of a four-day Global Constitutionalism Seminar held September 26-29 at the Law School.

Founded in 1996, the annual seminar brings together leading constitutional court justices from around the world to freely and confidentially discuss with faculty members the most important legal issues of the day. The theme of this year’s meetings was “The Design and Operation of Judicial Review.”

The 20 justices who attended included Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court; Justice Brun-Otto Bryde of the Constitutional Court of Germany; Justice José Ramón Cossío Díaz of the Supreme Court of Mexico; Justice Olivier Dutheillet de Lamothe of the Conseil Constitutionnel of France; Justice Kate O’Regan of the Constitutional Court of South Africa; Vice President Wan Exiang of the Supreme People’s Court, P.R. China; and Justice Luzius Wildhaber, former President of the European Court of Human Rights.

The seminar has been directed by Professor Robert Post ’77 since 2006.  From 1996 to 2006, it was directed by Professor Paul Gewirtz ’70.

The Robert P. Anderson Memorial Lecture was established by former law clerks and friends in memory of Robert P. Anderson ’29, Senior Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.