Suchergebnisse

Karen Alter's work on the European Court of Justice heralded a new level of sophistication in the political analysis of the controversial institution, through its combination of legal understanding and active engagement with theoretical questions. The European Court's Political Power assembles the most important of Alter's articles written over a fourteen year span, adding an original new introduction and conclusion taking an overview of the Court's development and currentconcerns. Together the articles provide insight into the historical and political contours of the ECJ's influence on Europe

"In 1989, when the Cold War ended, there were six permanent international courts. Today there are more than two dozen that have collectively issued over thirty-seven thousand binding legal rulings. The New Terrain of International Law charts the developments and trends in the creation and role of international courts, and explains how the delegation of authority to international judicial institutions influences global and domestic politics.The New Terrain of International Law presents an in-depth look at the scope and powers of international courts operating around the world. Focusing on dispute resolution, enforcement, administrative review, and constitutional review, Karen Alter argues that international courts alter politics by providing legal, symbolic, and leverage resources that shift the political balance in favor of domestic and international actors who prefer policies more consistent with international law objectives. International courts name violations of the law and perhaps specify remedies. Alter explains how this limited power--the power to speak the law--translates into political influence, and she considers eighteen case studies, showing how international courts change state behavior. The case studies, spanning issue areas and regions of the world, collectively elucidate the political factors that often intervene to limit whether or not international courts are invoked and whether international judges dare to demand significant changes in state practices"--

Principal-Agent (P-A) theory sees the fact of delegation as defining a relationship be-tween states (collective Principals) and international organizations (Agents) with recon-tracting threats being the predominate way states influence IOs. Developing a category of Trustee-Agents, I argue that recontracting tools will be both harder to use and less effective at influencing the Trustee-Agents. Trustee-Agents are 1) selected because of their personal reputation or professional norms, 2) given independent authority to make decisions according to their best judgement or professional criteria, and 3) empowered to act on behalf of a beneficiary. Focusing on state-International Courts (IC) relations, the article develops an alternative explanation that highlights the need for international judges to balance legal fidelity with the significant international challenge of endeav-ouring compliance. The arguments are explored through three case studies of IC deci-sion-making that call into question the "rational expectations" claim that ICs are tailor-ing their decisions to reflect the wishes of powerful states and avoid adverse recontracting.

AbstractThe After Fragmentation special issue unites political science conversations about regime complexity with legal/normative conversations about global constitutionalism through a focus on the generation and resolution of interface conflicts, defined as moments when overlapping elements or rule incompatibilities generate actual conflicts. Yet scholars choosing among these two perspectives actually have different objectives. After reviewing the two literatures, I argue that this special issue is closer to the global constitutionalism perspective, which generally seeks legitimated order. By contrast, the regime complexity literature asks how does the fact that global governance is spread across multiple institutions in itself shape cooperation politics. Investigating what it means to get 'beyond fragmentation', I suggest that the potential or actuality of rule conflicts is not necessarily a problem because conflicts are a normal and even salutary aspect of politics. If conflict is not the concern, then what should we be worrying about? Both perspectives, I argue, are amoral because they normalise and help justify an international order where responsibility is spread across institutions, promoting order while failing to address fundamental problems affecting people and the world. In this respect, resolving rule conflicts does not get us beyond fragmentation.