A state court has agreed with a court system in another country to provide each other with legal guidance. That was the announcement by New York’s chief judge and the chief justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Australia. Duncan B. Hollis, a professor at Temple's Beasley School of Law, said that the legality of this pact remains an open question. A provision in the federal constitution says that states may enter into an agreement with a foreign government only if approved by Congress. But states and foreign countries have entered hundreds of agreements without first going to Congress, Hollis said.