This comprehensive book compares the intersection of political forces and legal practices in five industrial nations—the United States, England, France, Germany, and Japan. The authors, eminent political scientists and legal scholars, investigate how constitutional courts function in each country, how the adjudication of criminal justice and the processing of civil disputes connect legal systems to politics, and how both ordinary citizens and large corporations use the courts. For each of the five countries, the authors discuss the structure of courts and access to them, the manner in which politics and law are differentiated or amalgamated, whether judicial posts are political prizes or bureaucratic positions, the ways in which courts are perceived as legitimate forms for addressing political conflicts, the degree of legal consciousness among citizens, the kinds of work lawyers do, and the manner in which law and courts are used as social control mechanisms. The authors find that although the extent to which courts participate in policymaking varies dramatically from country to country, judicial responsiveness to perceived public problems is not a uniquely American phenomenon.

This comprehensive book compares the intersection of political forces and legal practices in five industrial nations--the United States, England, France, Germany, and Japan. The authors, eminent political scientists and legal scholars, investigate how constitutional courts function in each country, how the adjudication of criminal justice and the processing of civil disputes connect legal systems to politics, and how both ordinary citizens and large corporations use the courts. For each of the five countries, the authors discuss the structure of courts and access to them, the manner in which politics and law are differentiated or amalgamated, whether judicial posts are political prizes or bureaucratic positions, the ways in which courts are perceived as legitimate forms for addressing political conflicts, the degree of legal consciousness among citizens, the kinds of work lawyers do, and the manner in which law and courts are used as social control mechanisms. The authors find that although the extent to which courts participate in policymaking varies dramatically from country to country, judicial responsiveness to perceived public problems is not a uniquely American phenomenon.

Considers the relation between law and politics, including human rights, federalism and equal protection.

Human Rights and Judicial Review: A Comparative Perspective collects, in one volume, a basic description of the most important principles and methods of analysis followed by the major Courts enforcing constitutional Bills of Rights around the world. The Courts include the Supreme Courts of Japan, India, Canada and the United States, the Constitutional Courts of Germany and Italy and the European Court of Human Rights. Each chapter is devoted to an analysis of the substantive jurisprudence developed by these Courts to determine whether a challenged law is constitutional or not, and is written by members of these Courts who have had a prior academic career. The book highlights the similarities and differences in the analytical methods used by these courts in determining whether or not someone's constitutional rights have been violated. Students and scholars of constitutional law and human rights, judges and advocates engaged in constitutional litigation will find the book a unique and valuable resource.

This volume compares the different conceptions of the rule of law that have developed in different legal cultures. It describes the social purposes and practical applications of the rule of law and how it might be improved in the varied circumstances.

Constitutional courts around the world play an increasingly central role in day-to-day democratic governance. Yet scholars have only recently begun to develop the interdisciplinary analysis needed to understand this shift in the relationship of constitutional law to politics. This edited volume brings together leading scholars of constitutional law and politics to provide a comprehensive overview of judicial review, covering theories of its creation, mechanisms of its constraint, and its comparative applications, including theories of interpretation and doctrinal developments. This book serves as a single point of entry for legal scholars and practitioners interested in understanding the field of comparative judicial review in its broader political and social context. This book's comparative and interdisciplinary accounts of a phenomenon of worldwide significance and its advanced introduction to the origins, functions, and contours of judicial review make it both accessible and indispensable. Comparative Judicial Review should be considered essential reading for every graduate student, early career scholar, and constitutional law professor seeking to become more comparative in their approach. Contributors include: K.J. Alter, S.G. Calabresi, W.-C. Chang, E.F. Delaney, R. Dixon, L, Esptein, T. Ginsburg, J. Greene, A. Harel, R. Hirschl, S. Issacharoff, V. Jackson, T. Jacobi, R.A. Kagan, D. Kapiszewski, J. Knight, D. Landau, Y.-L. Lee, H. Lerner, S. Mittal, T. Roux, W. Sadurski, A. Shinar, G. Silverstein, K. Stilt, Y. Tew, M. Versteeg, S. Waheedi, B.R. Weingast, E. Zackin

The past decade has witnessed a worldwide explosion of work aimed at illuminating judicial-behavior: the choices judges make and the consequences of their choices. We focus on strategic accounts of judicial-behavior. As in other approaches to judging, preferences and institutions play a central role but strategic accounts are unique in one important respect: They draw attention to the interdependent - i.e., the strategic - nature of judicial decisions. On strategic accounts, judges do not make decisions in a vacuum, but rather attend to the preferences and likely actions of other actors, including their colleagues, superiors, politicians, and the public. We survey the major methodological approaches for conducting strategic analysis and consider how scholars have used them to provide insight into the effect of internal and external actors on the judges' choices. As far as these studies have traveled in illuminating judicial-behavior, many opportunities for forward movement remain. We flag four in the conclusion.