IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/bjposi/v42y2012i02p413-439_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Precedent in International Courts: A Network Analysis of Case Citations by the European Court of Human Rights

Author

Listed:
  • Lupu, Yonatan
  • Voeten, Erik

Abstract

Why and how do international courts justify decisions with citations to their own case law? We argue that, like domestic review courts, international courts use precedent at least in part to convince ‘lower’ (domestic) courts of the legitimacy of judgements. Several empirical observations are consistent with this view, which are examined through a network analysis of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) citations. First, the Court cites precedent based on the legal issues in the case, not the country of origin. Second, the Court is more careful to embed judgements in its existing case law when the expected value of persuading domestic judges is highest. These findings contribute to a developing literature that suggests international and domestic review courts develop their authority in similar ways.

Suggested Citation

  • Lupu, Yonatan & Voeten, Erik, 2012. "Precedent in International Courts: A Network Analysis of Case Citations by the European Court of Human Rights," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(2), pages 413-439, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:42:y:2012:i:02:p:413-439_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0007123411000433/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yonatan Lupu & Vincent A. Traag, 2013. "Trading Communities, the Networked Structure of International Relations, and the Kantian Peace," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 57(6), pages 1011-1042, December.
    2. Marius Zipf & Johannes Glückler & Tamar Khuchua & Emmanuel Lazega & François Lachapelle & Jakob Hoffmann, 2023. "The Judicial Geography of Patent Litigation in Germany: Implications for the Institutionalization of the European Unified Patent Court," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-17, May.
    3. Yonatan Lupu & James H. Fowler, 2013. "Strategic Citations to Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 151-186.
    4. Salgado, Ariel & Caridi, Inés, 2022. "Network of R packages: A characterization of an empirical collaborative network," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    5. Jillienne Haglund & Courtney Hillebrecht, 2020. "Overlapping international human rights institutions: Introducing the Women’s Rights Recommendations Digital Database (WR2D2)," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(5), pages 648-657, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:42:y:2012:i:02:p:413-439_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.