The gate-keepers – legal isolationism and constitutional interpretation under president Obama. "Las puertas del campo – aislacionismo jurídico e interpretación constitucional en la presidencia Obama"

Abstract

United States v. Windsor, Executor of the Estate of Spyer, et al. (26th June 2013) declares the inconstitutionality of Section III of MOMA which is a federal law that used to limit the meaning of the term “marriage” to the “legal union between a man and a woman” in the United States of America. the absence of any reference to comparative legal practice or international law in the legal reasoning of the U.S. Supreme Court in a case which is bound to have a symbolic role in the future of comparative constitutional law in the area of same-sex marriages is striking. This article examines how the interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is currently torn between two extremes: a sovereignist-type of legal aislationism and the embracement of the global law of the 21st Century.