Commitment and Cooperation on High Courts

A Cross-Country Examination of Institutional Constraints on Judges

Benjamin Alarie and Andrew J. Green

Poses several important institutional questions from a comparative perspective
Explains how the answers to these questions determine the influence of political preferences of individual judges and the degree of cooperation among them
Applies the institutional questions to empirical work on the Supreme Courts of the US, UK, Canada, India, and the High Court of Australia
Promotes a deeper understanding of how institutional differences affect judicial decision-making
Provides institutional detail in each chapter to describe how high courts in each of the selected countries are designed
Builds a framework for discussing the influence of high court design choices known as the Commitment-Cooperation framework
Figures and diagrams assist in understanding the empirical findings and trends
Detailed empirical discussions are left to appendices that provide material for those who want more technical detail

Commitment and Cooperation on High Courts

A Cross-Country Examination of Institutional Constraints on Judges

Benjamin Alarie and Andrew J. Green

Description

Judicial decision-making may ideally be impartial, but in reality it is influenced by many different factors, including institutional context, ideological commitment, fellow justices on a panel, and personal preference. Empirical literature in this area increasingly analyzes this complex collection of factors in isolation, when a larger sample size of comparative institutional contexts can help assess the impact of the procedures, norms, and rules on key institutional decisions, such as how appeals are decided. Four basic institutional questions from a comparative perspective help address these studies regardless of institutional context or government framework. Who decides, or how is a justice appointed? How does an appeal reach the court; what processes occur? Who is before the court, or how do the characteristics of the litigants and third parties affect judicial decision-making? How does the court decide the appeal, or what institutional norms and strategic behaviors do the judges perform to obtain their preferred outcome? This book explains how the answers to these institutional questions largely determine the influence of political preferences of individual judges and the degree of cooperation among judges at a given point in time. The authors apply these four fundamental institutional questions to empirical work on the Supreme Courts of the US, UK, Canada, India, and the High Court of Australia. The ultimate purpose of this book is to promote a deeper understanding of how institutional differences affect judicial decision-making, using empirical studies of supreme courts in countries with similar basic structures but with sufficient differences to enable meaningful comparison.

Commitment and Cooperation on High Courts

A Cross-Country Examination of Institutional Constraints on Judges

Benjamin Alarie and Andrew J. Green

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
1 COMMITMENT AND COOPERATION ON HIGH COURTS
2 HOW DO JUDGES DECIDE?
3 PLANTING THE SEED: CHOOSING HIGH COURT JUDGES
4 WHO HEARS THE PARTICULAR APPEAL?
5 DO JUDGES CARE ABOUT OTHERS?
6 SLIPPING THROUGH THE SCREEN: HOW DO COURTS CHOOSE THE CASES
THEY HEAR?
7 THE INFLUENCE OF THE PARTIES ON JUDGES: ACCURACY OR AFFILIATION
8 NORMS, LEADERSHIP AND CONSENSUS
9 CONCLUSION
APPENDICES
1 THE DATA
2 INFLUENCES ON JUDGE'S VOTES
3 DISSENT ANALYSIS
INDEX

Commitment and Cooperation on High Courts

A Cross-Country Examination of Institutional Constraints on Judges

Benjamin Alarie and Andrew J. Green

Author Information

Benjamin Alarie, Osler Chair in Business Law, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and Andrew J. Green, Associate Professor, University of Toronto Faculty of Law

Benjamin Alarie is the Osler Chair in Business Law at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law. He also serves as President of the Canadian Law and Economics Association. He works primarily in taxation law and judicial decision-making, and he has published in the American Business Law Journal, the British Tax Review, the Canadian Business Law Journal, the Canadian Tax Journal, and many other academic journals. He is co-author of several editions of Canadian Income Tax Law. Prior to joining the Faculty in 2004, Alarie clerked for Madam Justice Louise Arbour at the Supreme Court of Canada. He holds an MA and JD from Toronto and an LLM from Yale.

Andrew J. Green is Associate Professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law. His work focuses on environmental law, international trade and administrative law (how international trade rules constrain countries' ability to implement domestic environmental policy), and the role of law in fostering individuals' environmental values. He has published in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, the Virginia Environmental Law Review, the Supreme Court Law Review, and the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, among others. He holds a BA Hons from Queens, an MA and LLB from Toronto, and an LLM and JSD from Chicago.

Commitment and Cooperation on High Courts

A Cross-Country Examination of Institutional Constraints on Judges

Benjamin Alarie and Andrew J. Green

Reviews and Awards

"The law is not an abstract ideal, but something that emerges from a specific institutional context. This book builds on this key idea to analyze how specific institutional features translate into specific legal experiences across several countries with well-established and highly varied legal systems. I highly recommend this book for anyone using comparative methods to understand how the law really works." - Michael A. Bailey, Colonel William J. Walsh Professor Department of Government and McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University

"A creative new approach to thinking about high courts and how judges do their work. Provides some valuable perspective on the U.S. Supreme Court and charts a path forward in the study of judicial politics." - Keith E. Whittington, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Princeton University