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The purpose of this research is to examine theories of diffuse support and institutional legitimacy by testing hypotheses about the interrelationships among the salience of courts, satisfaction with court outputs, and diffuse support for national high courts. Like our predecessors, we are constrained by essentially cross-sectional data; unlike them, we analyze mass attitudes toward high courts in eighteen countries. Because our sample includes many countries with newly formed high courts, our cross-sectional data support several longitudinal inferences, using the age of the judicial institution as an independent variable. We discover that the U.S. Supreme Court is not unique in the esteem in which it is held and, like other courts, it profits from a tendency of people to credit it for pleasing decisions but not to penalize it for displeasing ones. Generally, older courts more successfully link specific and diffuse support, most likely due to satisfying successive, nonoverlapping constituencies.

ABSTRACT The interdependence between governance and legitimacy of the courts is a subject that has not been much studied by scholars, especially those from the fields of public administration and organizational studies. Taking into account the importance of these topics for the functioning of these organizations, the purpose of this essay is twofold: to enrich the debate on the contribution of good governance to the legitimacy of courts, and to encourage researchers to address these themes in greater depth. To this end, the main literature on governance and legitimacy of courts is analyzed. Theoretical approaches contribute to the discussion of the functioning of courts, which are highly institutionalized organizations that depend heavily on a presumption of legitimacy. Ensuring this legitimacy has been one of the challenges for these organizations, which are required to adopt governance models that contribute to better management and performance. We argue that there are managerial and substantive implications for society, since the governance and legitimacy of courts can affect the system of justice. We put forward some propositions on the influence of judicial governance on the legitimacy of the justice system and on the perception of legitimacy of the courts. These propositions provide insights for a research agenda on these issues.

Abstract
Significant scholarly commentary exists on the legal aspects of the relationship between the International Court of Justice and the UN General Assembly. Legal scholars have mused about the role of General Assembly resolutions in the jurisprudence of the Court and dissected the General Assembly's (mis)use of requests for advisory opinions from the Peace Palace. Yet one essential aspect of the interaction between the two institutions tends to be overlooked. Each fall, UN Members meet in the hall of the General Assembly to offer their comments on the annual Report of the ICJ. The debate constitutes one of few occasions on which UN Members get the opportunity to express views on the Court's activities and exercise of authority. Taking government statements issued in General Assembly debates over the past thirty years as its point of departure, the article teases out factors that, in the eyes of UN Members, contribute to or detract from the Court's legitimacy. The article finds that four sets of sources affect UN Members' assessments of the institution: 1) the Court's outreach efforts and access to its various outputs, 2) diversity, representativeness, and the quality of its jurisprudence, 3) independence and impartiality of its judges, and 4) its efficiency, flexibility, and transparency. In so doing, the article contributes novel and empirically grounded perspectives to ongoing debates about the legitimacy of the principal judicial organ of the UN from the vantage point of its primary constituents, UN Members.

Digitised version produced by the EUI Library and made available online in 2020.

International courts and tribunals differ in their institutional composition and functions, but a shared characteristic is their reliance on the contribution of individuals other than the judicial decision-makers themselves. Such 'unseen actors' may take the form of registrars and legal officers, but also non-lawyers such as translators and scientific experts. Unseen actors are vital to the functioning of international adjudication, exerting varying levels of influence on judicial processes and outcomes. The opaqueness of their roles, combined with the significance of judicial decisions for the parties involved as well as a wider range of stakeholders, raises questions about unseen actors' impact on the legitimacy of international dispute settlement. This book aims to answer such legitimacy questions and identify 'best practices' through a multifaceted enquiry into common connections and patterns in the institutional composition and daily practice of international courts and tribunals.

"The book addresses questions about the roles of law and politics and the challenge of legitimacy in constitutional adjudication in the Supreme Court. With all sophisticated observers recognizing that the Justices' political outlooks influence their decision making, many political scientists, some of the public, and a few prominent judges have become Cynical Realists. In their view Justices vote based on their policy preferences, and legal reasoning is mere window-dressing. This book rejects Cynical Realism, but without denying many Realist insights. It explains the limits of language and history in resolving contentious constitutional issues. To rescue the notion that the Constitution is law that binds the Justices, the book provides an original account of what law is and means in the Supreme Court. It also offers a theory of legitimacy in Supreme Court adjudication. Given the nature of law in the Supreme Court, we need to accept and learn to respect reasonable disagreement about many constitutional issues. If so, the legitimacy question becomes: how would the Justices need to decide cases so that even those who disagree with the outcomes ought to respect the Justices' processes of decision? The book gives a fresh and counterintuitive answer to that vital question. Adapting a methodology made famous by John Rawls, it argues that the Justices should strive to achieve a "reflective equilibrium" between their interpretive principles, framed to identify the Constitution's enduring meaning, and their judgments about appropriate outcomes in particular cases, evaluated as prescriptions for the nation to live by in the future. The book blends the perspectives of law, philosophy, and political science to answer theoretical and practical questions of pressing national importance"--