Kwai Ng, Hang, and Xin He, Embedded Courts: Judicial Decision-Making in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Summary: Embedded Courts is laden with tension. Chinese courts are organized as a singular and unified system yet grassroots courts in urban and rural regions differ greatly in the way they use the law and are as diverse …
Mark Fathi Massoud, “International Arbitration and Judicial Politics in Authoritarian States.” Law & Social Inquiry, vol. 39, no. 1 (2014): 1–30 Summary: This article uses the case of Sudan to show how authoritarian regimes benefit from embracing international arbitration, allowing them to maintain domestic control and attract foreign investment. International arbitration ensures that foreign-investment disputes …
Benjamin L Liebman, “China’s Courts: Restricted Reform.” The China Quarterly, no. 191 (2007): 620–38. Summary: Recent developments in China’s courts reflect a paradox largely avoided in literature on the subject: Can China’s courts play an effective role in a non-democratic governmental system? Changes to courts’ formal authority have been limited, courts still struggle to address basic …
Liebman, Benjamin L. “A Populist Threat to China’s Courts?,” in Chinese Justice: Civil Dispute Resolution in Contemporary China. Edited by Margaret Y. K. Woo & Mary E. Gallagher, pp. 269-313. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2011). Summary: Is the Chinese party-state too responsive to public opinion? In the case of the courts, this may be the …
In a major legal rebuke, a fourth federal judge has struck down a Trump executive order targeting the elite law firm Susman Godfrey. The ruling, issued by U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan, deemed the order “unconstitutional from beginning to end,” echoing prior decisions that permanently blocked similar actions against Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and …
Alexandra Huneeus, Javier Couso, and Rachel Sieder. “Cultures of Legality: Judicialization and Political Activism in Contemporary Latin America,” In Cultures of Legality: Judicialization and Political Activism in Latin America. Edited by Javier Couso, Alexandra Huneeus, and Rachel Sieder, pp. 3–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Summary: Legal practices and ideas about law are undergoing dramatic change …
Hualing Fu, “Building Judicial Integrity in China.” Hastings Int’l & Comp. L. Rev, vol. 39, no. 1 (2016): 167-181. Summary: Since the late 1970s, the Chinese judiciary has undergone a continuous reform process of professionalization and institutionalization. Despite the political constraints, there are sufficient opportunities and incentives to continue China’s judicial reform so as to enhance …
Lisa Hilbink, Judges beyond Politics in Democracy and Dictatorship: Lessons from Chile. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Summary: Why did formerly independent Chilean judges, trained under and appointed by democratic governments, facilitate and condone the illiberal, antidemocratic, and anti-legal policies of the Pinochet regime? Challenging the assumption that adjudication in non-democratic settings is fundamentally different and …
Hans Petter Graver, Judges Against Justice: On Judges When the Rule of Law is Under Attack. New York City: Springer, 2014. Summary: This book explores concrete situations in which judges are faced with a legislature and an executive that consciously and systematically discard the ideals of the rule of law. It revolves around three basic questions: …
Tom Ginsburg. “Administrative Law and the Judicial Control of Agents in Authoritarian Regimes,” in The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes. Edited by Tom Ginsburg and Tamir Moustafa, pp. 58-72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Summary: One reason that dictators empower courts is to monitor and discipline lower-level administrative agents. This chapter applies a version of …