The Changing Role of Highest Courts in an Internationalising World
General Information
In November 2008, HiiL allocated €300.000 to an international research project studying the role of highest courts in an internationalising world. The aim of the project is to explore some of the most interesting and challenging questions raised in the last decade with respect to the role of national courts in transnational and international environments. The Highest Courts Research Project will span over a period of two years, and will culminate in a publication detailing the studies conducted and information obtained by individual researchers within the group.
Summary of the Project
The Highest Courts Research Group (HCRG) will endeavour to answer the following central research question: How is the role of national highest courts affected by internationalisation, what are the proximate causes and responsible agents of these changes, and finally – what consequences will ensue for the position of national highest courts within the domestic legal order?
The project explores issues arising for highest courts in the context of a globalised world. To what extent does internationalisation affect the role of national judiciaries and, in particular, highest courts? And what role is played by judges of highest courts in further advancing internationalisation? The project will seek to establish what judges are doing differently as a consequence of internationalisation and why. Judges are, in many respects, the lynchpin between the national and the international levels. It is judges who often end up applying international norms to the national level or who are taking developments in or ideas from other legal systems into account when adjudicating a concrete case before them. The project is a response to the vast amount of academic and political interest that these practices have generated over the last decade. The growing importance of national highest courts in an international and transnational context is now widely acknowledged. The project’s researchers have had many years of experience in the field, and will focus on a wide range of questions pertaining to national highest courts.
The research group takes an eclectic approach and a multi-disciplinary perspective, and its members are drawn from a variety of backgrounds: law, sociology, political science and anthropology. This enables the team to study issues from a number of angles. Building primarily upon empirical data, a sociological and political science approach gives insight into the actual ways in which the behaviour of judges and of judicial institutions has changed as a consequence of globalisation. Conceptually, a legal theoretical approach offers insights into the legitimacy of this practice in relation to concepts such as the rule of law and the supposed democratic deficit resulting from globalisation, as well as the implications of this practice for our traditional understanding of (domestic) legal concepts. Most importantly, a coordinated approach ensures cross-fertilisation between these various disciplines to formulate conclusions which draw on a broad and comprehensive range of insights.
The field of inquiry is very new, and as much of the existing research is predominantly grounded in a legal research methodology and clustered around a small number of jurisdictions known to be of particular interest (such as the United States, Canada and South-Africa), the HCRG fills a lacunae in the existing research by dividing itself into three ‘teams’, each with a different methodology and emphasis. Moreover, the project aims to extend its empirical focus to include studies of less-frequently-studied jurisdictions from varying continents and legal systems. These aims are mirrored by the composition of the group, which encompasses a wide range of scholars, both geographically and academically. An impression of the types of issues addressed by this project is contained in the materials on the 2008 Law of the Future conference, 'The Changing Role of Highest Courts in an Internationalising World'.
Project Leaders
Prof. Ton Hol – Utrecht University (also responsible for overall project management)
Prof. Andrea Lollini – Bologna University
Prof. John Bell – Cambridge University
Researchers
Prof. Antoine Garapon – L’Institut des Hautes Études sur la Justice
Prof. Robert Post – Yale Law School
Prof. Monica Claes – Tilburg University
Prof. Eyal Benvenisti – Tel Aviv University
Dr. Elaine Mak – Erasmus University Rotterdam
Prof. Nick Huls – Erasmus University Rotterdam
Prof. Ivo Giesen – Utrecht University (Montaigne Center)
Prof. Sacha Prechal – Utrecht University (Montaigne Center)
Prof. Emmanuel Lazega – Université Paris-Dauphine
Duration
2 years, May 2009 – June 2011
Grant Awarded
€300,000
Matching
€60,000
Developments/News
We are actively seeking to establish new ties with scholars and practitioners who are involved in the area of courts and globalisation. A central feature of a network organisation such as HiiL is its adaptability and flexibility. Owing to our networking infrastructure, we are able to facilitate a variety of projects and needs, ranging from the organisation of workshops and information exchanges to more specific projects, such as more permanent and structured forms of cooperation and exchange. Against this background, and in light of the research project already initiated, we are actively seeking to expand our activities in the practical sphere of judicial networks. We thus invite organisations who are seeking to establish ties with legal and judicial institutions beyond their own borders to contact us. In general, HiiL can offer the following: A global network of scholars and practitioners in a variety of different disciplines and research areas; a networking and organisational infrastructure which can be utilised to organise workshops, meetings (digital and face-to-face) as well as other interactive information exchanges; and access to a highly skilled group of scholars currently conducting research in the field of highest courts.
Contact Information
A Project Website is currently under construction. In the meantime, should you have any queries or wish to receive further information about any of the above, please contact:
Sam Muller
Director
sam.muller@hiil.org
+ 31 (0)70 3494405
