Consequential Courts

Maps the roles in governance that courts are undertaking and how they matter in the political life of these nations.

In the early twenty-first century, courts have become versatile actors in the governance of many constitutional democracies, and judges play a variety of roles in politics and policy making. Assembling papers penned by an array of academic specialists on high courts around the world, and presented during a year-long Andrew W. Mellon Foundation John E. Sawyer Seminar at the University of California, Berkeley, this volume maps the roles in governance that courts are undertaking and the ways in which they have come to matter in the political life of their nations. It offers empirically rich accounts of dramatic judicial actions in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, exploring the political conditions and judicial strategies that have fostered those assertions of power, and evaluating when and how courts' performance of new roles has been politically consequential. By focusing on the content and consequences of judicial power, the book advances a new agenda for the comparative study of courts.

The gripping story of the Supreme Court’s transformation from a measured institution of law and justice into a highly politicized body dominated by a right-wing supermajority, told through the dramatic lens of its most transformative year, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning law columnist for The New York Times—with a new preface by the author “A dazzling feat . . . meaty, often scintillating and sometimes scary . . . Greenhouse is a virtuoso of SCOTUS analysis.”—The Washington Post In Justice on the Brink, legendary journalist Linda Greenhouse gives us unique insight into a court under stress, providing the context and brilliant analysis readers of her work in The New York Times have come to expect. In a page-turning narrative, she recounts the twelve months when the court turned its back on its legacy and traditions, abandoning any effort to stay above and separate from politics. With remarkable clarity and deep institutional knowledge, Greenhouse shows the seeds being planted for the court’s eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, expansion of access to guns, and unprecedented elevation of religious rights in American society. Both a chronicle and a requiem, Justice on the Brink depicts the struggle for the soul of the Supreme Court, and points to the future that awaits all of us.

Stephen Gardbaum proposes and examines a new way of protecting rights in a democracy.

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 the 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 open access book deals with Article 7 TEU measures, court proceedings, financial sanctions and the EU Rule of Law Framework to protect EU values with a particular focus on checks and balances in EU Member States. It analyses substantive standards, powers, procedures as well as the consequences and implications of the various instruments. It combines the analysis of the European level, be it the EU or the Council of Europe, with that of the national level, in particular in Hungary and Poland. The LM judgment of the European Court of Justice is made subject to detailed scrutiny.

Responding to the call to place more emphasis on practical skills, Contracts and Commercial Transactions is a groundbreaking text that immerses the reader in real agreements made between sophisticated parties--so the reader can develop the ability to read, understand, and draft contracts effectively. Drawing upon their collective experiences in the classroom and the boardroom as well as in law-firm and in-house practice, authors David Zarfes and Michael L. Bloom, in Contracts and Commercial Transactions, explore actual agreements between sophisticated parties. Along the way, they teach the reader to read and understand contracts, with an emphasis on how a decision maker--be it a judge, arbitrator, corporate executive, or senior partner--might later understand those same contracts. Contracts and Commercial Transactions features: Actual agreements, formatted as whole documents, that support the exercise of contract reading and analysis Insight and advice from expert practitioners, from law firms such as Sidley Austin and Simpson Thacher and companies such as Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase , that emphasize the realities of legal practice from the perspective of "real-world" lawyers Explanations and analysis from esteemed academics, at law schools such as Chicago and NYU, that explain the nuances of legal matters that pertain to contractual documents Focus points that preface each contract highlight key aspects of the document Methodical and repeated exposure to provisions that teach the reader to recognize and understand contractual concepts A consistent emphasis on the "building block" provisions typically found in contracts Drafting tips integrated throughout the book