RC09 - Comparative Judicial Studies

Making Rights a Reality? Disability Rights Activists and Legal Mobilization Lisa Vanhala, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University

Making Rights a Reality? explores the way in which disability activists in the United Kingdom and Canada have transformed their aspirations into legal claims in their quest for equality. It unpacks shifting conceptualizations of the political identity of disability and the role of a rights discourse in these dynamics. In doing so, it delves into the diffusion of disability rights among grassroots organizations and the traditional disability charities. The book draws on a wealth of primary sources including court records and campaign documents and encompassing interviews with more than sixty activists and legal experts. While showing that the disability rights movement has had a significant impact on equality jurisprudence in two countries, the book also demonstrates that the act of mobilizing rights can have consequences, both intended and unintended, for social movements themselves.

Please visit Making Rights a Reality? at Cambridge University Press.

Ruth Mackenzie, Kate Malleson, Penny Martin, and Philippe Sands QC, Selecting International Judges Principle, Process, and Politics

This book examines the way international court judges are chosen. Focusing principally on the judicial selection procedures of the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, it provides the first detailed examination of how the selection process works in practice at national and international levels: what factors determine whether a state will nominate a candidate? How is a candidate identified? What factors influence success or failure? What are the respective roles of merit, politics, and other considerations in the nomination and election process?

The research was based on interviews, case studies and survey data in a range of different states. It concludes that although the nature and quality of nomination and election processes vary widely, a common theme indicates the powerful influence of domestic and international political considerations, and the significant role of a small group of diplomats, civil servants, lawyers, and academics, often without transparency or accountability. The processes allow overt political considerations to be introduced throughout the decision-making process in ways that may detract from the selection of the most highly qualified candidates and, ultimately, undermine independence. This is particularly evident in the election campaigning that has become a defining feature of the selection process, accompanied by widespread vote trading and reciprocal agreements between states. The effect of these practices is often to undermine the role of statutory selection criteria and to favour candidates from more politically powerful states. The book reviews new judicial selection models adopted or proposed in other international and regional courts, and considers a number of proposals for change to promote more independent, transparent, and merit-based nomination and election procedures.

Details at:

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199580569.do?keyword=selecting+international+judges&sortby=bestMatches

RC09's 2011 Interim Meeting will be held at the University of California-Irvine, July 21-23, 2011. The theme of this meeting is "The Judicialization of Politics from International and Comparative Perspectives" and is hosted by Professor Charles Anthony Smith and Professor Diana Kapiszewski of the Department of Political Science.

A proposal with a 200 word abstract for RC09 at University of California-Irvine will be accepted until November 15, 2010.

The Project

A common legal framework and a convergent judicial culture represent one of the pillars on which the European integration process has been pivoting since its very beginning. Today, more than ever, the understanding and the maintenance of the tempo and the direction of the integration need to rely on a common language with which Europeans and European policy makers develop a dialogue across domestic and cultural differences.

Menu for Justice is the first European project that takes seriously the issue of how young generations should be trained in law and legal matters and how the prospective experts of law and courts should be provided of new skills and competences to effectively face the challenges of a common judicial space. By devoting three years of common work among fifty partners in Europe, the project aims at assessing principal shortcomings of legal education, developing an innovative curriculum studiorum in judicial studies, and offering the EU and the public basic guidelines to monitor the way legal and judicial training are changing in the EU, all over the cycles of education (from undergraduate to graduate, PhD programs and vocational learning).

Please visit Menu for Justice at https://www.academic-projects.eu/menuforjustice/default.aspx

Issue 44 (February 2010) of "The Docket" is now available at Issue 44 (February 2010)

The Executive Committee welcomes the newest member, Daniela Piana, from the University of Bologna. Daniela’s appointment was confirmed during the recent RC09 Business Meeting at IPSA 2009 in Santiago, Chile.

The Research Committee for Comparative Judicial Studies (RC09) is one of 49 active research committees of the International Political Science Association. Our purpose is to promote scholarly work on law, courts, and judicial processes from a comparative perspective. Ultimately, we seek to bring the study of the various dimensions of judicial systems within the mainstream of comparative political research. RC09 encourages comparative research on judicial systems and the participation of scholars in our program regardless of the disciplinary origins and commitments of those who do the research.