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"Law and the Formation of Modern Europe explores processes of legal construction in both the national and supranational domains, and it provides an overview of the modern European legal order. In its supranational focus, it examines the sociological pressures which have given rise to European public law, the national origins of key transnational legal institutions and the elite motivations driving the formation of European law. In its national focus, it addresses legal questions and problems which have assumed importance in parallel fashion in different national societies, and which have shaped European law more indirectly. Examples of this are the post-1914 transformation of classical private law, the rise of corporatism, the legal response to the post-1945 legacy of authoritarianism, the emergence of human rights law and the growth of judicial review. This two-level sociological approach to European law results in unique insights into the dynamics of national and supranational legal formation"--

"Mainstream legal scholarship on the European Community (EC) and the European Union (EU) has long been dominated by meta-narratives and grand theories to explain European legal integration as a necessary, if not self-evident, process toward ever greater integration. The directional pull of these functional narratives, whether termed as Europeanization, federalization, or constitutionalization, is one towards an ever-closer Union, thereby replicating the original teleology of the Rome Treaty (1957). Although there are theoretical differences among these explanations, notably between intergovernmental and neo-functionalist narratives, most scholars agree that one particular institutional actor has played an outsized role: the European Court of Justice (ECJ), now the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) since the Lisbon Treaty (2009) that includes the Court of Justice, the General Court. For the same reasons, the CJEU has become a coveted object of inquiry for studies of European integration and governance. We have for years learned about its role in constitutionalizing Europe, establishing the supremacy of European law, creating a system of supranational governance, and the new types of litigation and mobilization spurred by the ECJ"--

An innovative, interdisciplinary and far-reaching examination of the actual reality of international courts, International Court Authority challenges fundamental preconceptions about when, why, and how international courts become important and authoritative actors in national, regional, and international politics. A stellar group of scholars investigate the challenges that international courts face in transforming the formal legal authority conferred by states into an actual authority in fact that is respected by potential litigants, national actors, legal communities, and publics. Alter, Helfer, and Madsen provide a novel framework for conceptualizing international court authority that focuses on the reactions and practices of these key audiences. Eighteen scholars from the disciplines of law, political science and sociology apply this framework to study thirteen international courts operating in Africa, Latin America, and Europe, as well as on a global level. Together the contributors document and explore important and interesting variations in whether the audiences that interact with international courts around the world embrace or reject the rulings of these judicial institutions. Alter, Helfer, and Madsen's authority framework recognizes that international judges can and often do everything they 'should' do to ensure that their rulings possess the gravitas and stature that national courts enjoy. Yet even when imbued with these characteristics, the parties to the dispute, potential future litigants, and the broader set of actors that monitor and respond to the court's activities may fail to acknowledge the rulings as binding or take meaningful steps to modify their behaviour in response to them. For both specific judicial institutions, and more generally, the book documents and explains why most international courts possess de facto authority that is partial, variable, and highly dependent on a range of different audiences and contexts - and thus is highly fragile.