Fernanda Nicola

Antoine Vauchez

Mikael Rask Madsen

The book explores cutting-edge interdisciplinary research strategies for the study of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Methodological Shifts and Law's Embeddedness

Researching the European Court of Justice

Jonas Christoffersen

Leading scholars and practitioners cast new light on the substantial jurisprudence and ongoing political reform of the European Court of Human Rights. The analysis in this edited collection traces the development of the supranational European human rights system and provides original insights into the challenges facing the Court.

The European Court of Human Rights between Law and Politics

Anne Lise Kjær

Focusing on paradoxes and tensions of European legal integration, this book investigates four complex and inherently contradictory processes - constitutionalization and democratization, institution-building and market-making, cross-cultural communication and European discourse, and cultural exceptionalism and normalization - to offer a new framework for understanding contemporary European integration. The volume features contributions from some of the biggest names in European legal philosophy, to include Neil MacCormick, Yves Dezalay and Bryant Garth, Pierre Legrand, Heikki Mattila and David Nelken. It presents a timely, interdisciplinary approach to an important and topical area and will be of interest to those concerned with the place of socio-legal processes, language and culture in the continuous advancement of the EU project.

Paradoxes of European Legal Integration

Chris Thornhill

Presents a series of distinct sociological inquiries into the formation of contemporary European law and society.

Perspectives from the Historical Sociology of Law

Law and the Formation of Modern Europe

An innovative, interdisciplinary and far-reaching examination of the actual reality of international courts, International Court Authority challenges fundamental preconceptions about when, why, and how international courts become important and authoritative actors in national, regional, and international politics. A stellar group of scholars investigate the challenges that international courts face in transforming the formal legal authority conferred by states into an actual authority in fact that is respected by potential litigants, national actors, legal communities, and publics. Alter, Helfer, and Madsen provide a novel framework for conceptualizing international court authority that focuses on the reactions and practices of these key audiences. Eighteen scholars from the disciplines of law, political science and sociology apply this framework to study thirteen international courts operating in Africa, Latin America, and Europe, as well as on a global level. Together the contributors document and explore important and interesting variations in whether the audiences that interact with international courts around the world embrace or reject the rulings of these judicial institutions. Alter, Helfer, and Madsen's authority framework recognizes that international judges can and often do everything they 'should' do to ensure that their rulings possess the gravitas and stature that national courts enjoy. Yet even when imbued with these characteristics, the parties to the dispute, potential future litigants, and the broader set of actors that monitor and respond to the court's activities may fail to acknowledge the rulings as binding or take meaningful steps to modify their behaviour in response to them. For both specific judicial institutions, and more generally, the book documents and explains why most international courts possess de facto authority that is partial, variable, and highly dependent on a range of different audiences and contexts - and thus is highly fragile. An introduction situates the book's unique approach to conceptualizing international court authority within theoretical debates about the authority of global institutions. International Court Authority also includes critical reflections on the authority framework from legal theorists, international relations scholars, a philosopher, and an anthropologist. The book's conclusion questions a number of widely shared assumptions about how social and political contexts facilitate or undermine international courts in developing de facto authority and political power.

International Court Authority

Niilo Kauppi

This book argues that European Union institutional mechanics and the EU as a political unit cannot be properly understood without taking into account the elites that make the policy decisions. Spurred by globalisation, technological and economic development has provided the backbone for social and political transformations that have changed the social structures that unite and differentiate individuals and groups in Europe and their interface with extra-European actors. These developments are not only exemplified by the rise of the EU, but also by the rise of a set of transnational European power elites evolving in and around the European construction. This book maps out these EU and international interdependencies and provides a comprehensive picture of the European transnational power elites. Moving away from the majority of literature on European integration dominated by economics, law, IR and political science, the volume is written from a sociological perspective that takes into account the individuals that make the policy decisions, the formal and informal groups in which s/he is included, as well as the social conventions that regulate political and administrative activities in the EU. This book will be of much interest to students of EU studies, sociology, critical security studies, and IR in general.

Mikael Rask Madsen

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