The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 Melanie O’Brien, senior lecturer in international law at the University of Western Australia, wrote yesterday about the legacy of United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who passed way last week.

The article, The RBG Legacy: Equality and Inspiration, was published on the blog Opinio Juris:

It is impossible in a blog post to mention all of the cases RBG had an impact on; but there are myriad articles and books written about these. As a lawyer and a Supreme Court Justice, RBG specifically contributed to changing the law for the better. Her actions resulted in the reduction of discrimination on the basis of gender, and other grounds, throughout the United States. Her work affected every woman in the country, expanding their rights to education, to make claims against workplace pay discrimination, to access military benefits, and beyond. Every case that was about one person became so much more. RBG said that there would be enough women on the Supreme Court “when there are nine”, noting that nobody was ever shocked that for most of the Supreme Court’s existence, there have been nine male judges. Her engagement with and use of foreign and international law demonstrate an openness of legal perspective that benefited her work as a professor, lawyer and judge, and confirms that looking beyond one’s borders makes one a better jurist. People around the world admire RBG – themselves practicing this open perspective, to learn from her as a foreign, domestic judge – learning how to be a better professor, lawyer or judge.

Opinio Juris is associated with the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ). The ICJ brings together senior judges, lawyers, and legal academics representing the world’s many legal systems to promote and protect the rule of law.