Europe has taken the lead in jurisprudence because, unlike the U.S., it has gone global in its approach to law. Not only has Turkey stopped short of executing Kurdish rebel leader Ocalan pending an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but Germany is now integrating women into its armed forces in deference to a ruling by the European Court of Justice. PNS associate editor Andrew Reding, a fellow of the World Policy Institute, can be reached at worldpolicy.org/Americas.

The Supreme Court is being upstaged in its traditional role as the world's most powerful and innovative legal body. As highlighted by the European Court of Human Rights' decision that Britain must admit gays into its military, and the European Court of Justice's decision that Germany must allow women to serve in combat roles in its armed forces, Europe is overtaking the United States on the frontiers of human rights law.

Just think about it. The Bundeswehr, whose symbol remains the iron cross, is being compelled to let women bear arms. The Royal Navy, that bastion of stodgy tradition, will have to admit open homosexuals. No "don't ask, don't tell" on the other side of the Atlantic Alliance. All because a couple of transnational courts said so. Bismarck and Churchill would be scandalized.

Yet both Germany and the U.K. are complying without a murmur. Lord Robertson, the U.K. Defense minister, said "This government, like all governments, has to accept the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights."

The European Court of Human Rights now has jurisdiction over forty countries with a combined population of 800 million, almost three times the 275 million persons who are within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court. Just two years ago, Eurocitizens gained the same direct access to the court as American citizens have had for two centuries. The European Court of Justice, meanwhile, has jurisdiction over the 376 million citizens of the European Union.

Like the Supreme Court, its European counterparts are courts of last resort, to which citizens may turn once they have exhausted all other legal means of redress. That is how Tanja Kreil, a 23-year-old German woman, forced change on the Bundeswehr. And how four British gays and lesbians who were discharged from the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy forced change on the British military.

Unlike the Supreme Court, however, the two European courts are transnational. That means they place international human rights law above domestic constitutional law. Germany, for instance, will now have to amend its constitution to conform to the court ruling. Even the Turks are being stopped cold in their plan to execute Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan. Ocalan's attorneys have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, and Turkey dares not imperil its chances of joining the European Union.

As transnational courts alter jurisprudence within Europe, they are also changing it worldwide. If the nation-state is no longer sacrosanct in Europe, why should it be anywhere else? That is the mindset that is sweeping across Europe as borders all but disappear.

It was a crusading Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzon, who brought charges against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for violating the Torture Convention, and it was Britain's supreme court -- the Law Lords -- who agreed that Pinochet could be extradited to Spain to stand trial. Last month, Garzon issued arrest warrants for 48 members of Argentina's military dictatorship. And for the first time ever, a sitting head of state -- Serbian president Slobodan Milosevich -- has been indicted by an international war crimes tribunal.

Heads of state can no longer rely on sovereign immunity and the sanctity of the nation-state to provide cover for human rights violations. Nor can hide-bound military establishments shelter themselves from change by relying on time-honored traditions. And if the European Court of Human Rights rules that Turkey must spare Abdullah Ocalan's life, as it virtually must do on a continent that has abolished the death penalty, Turkey will have little choice but to comply.

These are much bigger achievements than anything the U.S. Supreme Court is up to these days. Where the world's attention was once riveted on Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade, it is now on the likes of Kingdom of Spain v. Augusto Pinochet, and Smith and Grady v. United Kingdom.

Europe has taken the lead in jurisprudence because it has gone global in its approach to law as the United States continues to cling to an outdated concept of national sovereignty that no longer accords with economic and political reality. That is all the more ironic given the fact that American business and technology -- notably including the Internet -- is at the leading edge of globalization. America leads in economic and technological innovation, but is among the last in recognizing its legal implications.