Cite as: 524 U. S. 666 (1998)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
little, if any, impact on the fairness of trials conducted in other countries. Whether or not that suggestion is accurate, I do not believe our Bill of Rights was intended to have any effect on the conduct of foreign proceedings. If, however, we were to accept respondent's interpretation of the Clause, we would confer power on foreign governments to impair the administration of justice in this country. A law enacted by a foreign power making it a crime for one of its citizens to testify in an American proceeding against another citizen of that country would immunize those citizens from being compelled to testify in our courts. Variants of such a hypothetical law are already in existence. See Société Nationale Industrielle Aérospatiale v. United States Dist. Court for Southern Dist. of Iowa, 482 U. S. 522, 526, n. 6 (1987); see also id., at 544-545, n. 29. Of course, the Court might craft exceptions for such foreign criminal laws, but it seems far wiser to adhere to a clear limitation on the coverage of the Fifth Amendment, including its privilege against self-incrimination. That Amendment prescribes rules of conduct that must attend any deprivation of life, liberty, or property in our Nation's courts.
Justice Ginsburg, dissenting.
The privilege against self-incrimination, "closely linked historically with the abolition of torture," is properly regarded as a "landmar[k] in man's struggle to make himself civilized." E. Griswold, The Fifth Amendment Today 7 (1955); see id., at 8 (Fifth Amendment expresses "one of the fundamental decencies in the relation we have developed between government and man"). In my view, the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination prescribes a rule of conduct generally to be followed by our Nation's officialdom. It counsels officers of the United States (and of any State of the United States) against extracting testimony when the person examined reasonably fears that his words would be used against him in a later criminal prosecution.
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