A decent respect to the opinions of mankind - foreign law and the American Constitution

Part of the distressing, reactionary subjugation ritual that Senate review of federal court nominees has become is the affirmation that foreign law does not tell us how to understand the American Constitution.  It is rarely noted that our Declaration of Independence begins

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

So it is reassuring that Justice Anthony Kennedy has displayed a decent respect to the opinions of mankind  in his Eighth Amendment jurisprudence with today’s decision in Graham v. Florida, striking down state statutes sentencing juveniles to life without parole for crimes other than murder:

[A]s petitioner contends and respondent does not contest, the United States is the only Nation that imposes life without parole sentences on juvenile nonhomicide offenders. We also note, as petitioner and his amici emphasize, that Article 37(a) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every nation except the United States and Somalia, prohibits the imposition of “life imprisonment without possibility of release . . . for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age.” Brief for Petitioner 66; Brief for Amnesty International et al. as Amici Curiae 15–17. As we concluded in Roper with respect to the juvenile death penalty, “the United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against” life without parole for juvenile nonhomicide offenders.  (emph. added - gwc)