Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T22:56:46.946Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Diplomats in Robes: Judicial Career Paths and Free Speech Decision-Making at the European Court of Human Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2021

Erik Bleich Open the ORCID record for Erik Bleich [Opens in a new window] ,
Thomas M. Keck Open the ORCID record for Thomas M. Keck [Opens in a new window] ,
Neha Sharma  and
Claire Sigsworth Open the ORCID record for Claire Sigsworth [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A substantial body of scholarly research has examined decision-making in domestic high courts, but international judicial behavior remains relatively poorly understood. Building on research that uses judges’ career background as a proxy for their motivations at the European Court of Human Rights, we deploy a new measure of judicial career backgrounds and a new dataset of the Court’s free expression decisions. We combine quantitative analysis of judicial votes with qualitative analysis of judges’ signed dissenting opinions to advance existing understandings of the Court’s decision-making. We show that former diplomats are less likely to support contested free expression claims than their colleagues with different career backgrounds. In their published opinions, former diplomats are more likely to voice concerns about the objectionable nature of particular speech acts and to call for broad judicial deference to state restrictions on such speech. By contrast, judges with prior service in domestic government roles, as well as judges with career backgrounds outside of government, exhibit greater tolerance of objectionable speech, greater willingness to impose European-wide standards, and more frequent invocation of extra-European legal standards. Our findings contribute to broader debates about the influence of individual-level preferences on judicial behavior in international courts.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 1141 - 1172
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Bar Foundation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alter, Karen J. The New Terrain of International Law: Courts, Politics, Rights. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Arold, Nina-Louisa. The Legal Culture of the European Court of Human Rights. Leiden: Brill, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baum, Lawrence. Judges and Their Audiences: A Perspective on Judicial Behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Bleich, Erik, and Sylvia, Al-Mateen. “Hate Speech and the European Court of Human Rights: Ideas and Judicial Decision-Making.” Michigan State International Law Review 29, no. 2 (2021): 179–212.Google Scholar
Bruinsma, Fred J. “Judicial Identities in the European Court of Human Rights.” In Multilevel Governance in Enforcement and Adjudication, edited by van Hoek, Aukje, Hol, Ton, Jansen, Oswald, Rijpkema, Peter, and Widershoven, Rob, 203–40. Antwerp; Oxford: Intersentia, 2006.Google Scholar
Dzehtsiarou, Kanstantsin, and Alex, Schwartz. “Electing Team Strasbourg: Professional Diversity on the European Court of Human Rights and Why It Matters.” German Law Journal 21, no. 4 (2020): 621–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keck, Thomas M. The Most Activist Supreme Court in History: The Road to Modern Judicial Conservatism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keck, Thomas M. “Party, Policy, or Duty: Why Does the Supreme Court Invalidate Federal Statutes?” American Political Science Review 101, no. 2 (2007): 321–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keck, Thomas M. Judicial Politics in Polarized Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keck, Thomas M., Metroka, Brandon T., and Price, Richard S.. “The Judicial Protection of Anti-Judicial Speech.” American University International Law Review 33, no. 4 (2018): 693–769.Google Scholar
Madsen, Mikael R. “From Cold War Instrument to Supreme European Court: The European Court of Human Rights at the Crossroads of International and National Law and Politics.” Law & Social Inquiry 32, no. 1 (2007): 137–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madsen, Mikael R. “The Protracted Institutionalization of the Strasbourg Court: From Legal Diplomacy to Integrationist Jurisprudence.” In The European Court of Human Rights between Law and Politics, edited by Christoffersen, Jonas and Madsen, Mikael Rask, 43–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011a.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madsen, Mikael R. “Legal Diplomacy: Law, Politics, and the Genesis of Postwar European Human Rights.” In Human Rights in the Twentieth Century, edited by Hoffmann, Stefan-Ludwig, 62–81. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011b.Google Scholar
Martin, Andrew D., and Kevin M. Quinn. “Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953-1999.” Political Analysis 10, no. 2 (2002): 134–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettys, Todd E. “Free Expression, In-Group Bias, and the Court’s Conservatives: A Critique of the Epstein-Parker-Segal Study.” Buffalo Law Review 63, no. 1 (2015): 1–82.Google Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., and Spaeth, Harold J.. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Carolyn. “Coding Complexity: Bringing Law to the Empirical Analysis of the Supreme Court.” Hastings Law Journal 60, no. 3 (2009): 477–539.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Carolyn. “The Context of Ideology: Law, Politics, and Empirical Legal Scholarship.” Missouri Law Review 75, no. 1 (2010): 79–142.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Martin. “The Success of Judicial Review and Democracy.” In On Law, Politics, & Judicialization, edited by Shapiro, Martin and Sweet, Alec Stone, 149–83. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiansen, Øyvind, and Erik, Voeten. “Backlash and Judicial Restraint: Evidence from the European Court of Human Rights.” International Studies Quarterly 64, no. 4 (2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terris, Daniel, Romano, Cesare, and Swigart, Leigh. The International Judge: An Introduction to the Men and Women Who Decide the World’s Cases. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Voeten, Erik. “The Politics of International Judicial Appointments: Evidence from the European Court of Human Rights.” International Organization 61, no. 4 (2007): 669–701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voeten, Erik. “The Impartiality of International Judges: Evidence from the European Court of Human Rights.” American Political Science Review 102, no. 4 (2008): 417–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voeten, Erik. “The Politics of International Judicial Appointments.” Chicago Journal of International Law 9, no. 2 (2009): 387–405.Google Scholar
Weiden, David L. “Judicial Politicization, Ideology, and Activism at the High Courts of the United States, Canada, and Australia.” Political Research Quarterly 64, no. 2 (2011): 335–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Bleich et al. supplementary material

Appendix

Download Bleich et al. supplementary material(File)
File 50.4 KB