Doctoral Dissertation Research: Transnational Judicial Dialogue and Evolving Jurisprudence in British National Courts

University Of Oregon Eugene, Eugene OR

Investigators

Abstract

This research project explores the dynamics of European legal integration by examining how foreign legal jurisprudence is transmitted into the domestic realm. This study performs a single country analysis of the importation of foreign jurisprudence from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and from other member states of the European Union (EU) into the British legal system. The project explores to what degree foreign jurisprudence has influenced the British legal system and how much influence judicial actors (judges, lawyers, politicians) have in this process. European legal integration has two dimensions: vertical and horizontal. Most scholarship has focused on vertical legal integration, a top-down process where the establishment of a hierarchical legal order of courts and laws causes national courts to make increasingly similar decisions over time as they come under the formal authority of the ECJ. Less studied is horizontal legal integration, where national courts make increasingly similar decisions over time because national courts interact, borrow, and imitate each other informally. This dissertation investigates the latter dynamic, while also asking whether it has been fostered by vertical integration or, conversely, has encouraged vertical integration over time. The analysis includes all British high court cases in immigration, banking, and family law from 1920-2010. The study will also include qualitative analysis of British parliamentary documents from both chambers, interviews with British Law Lords and law clerks, interviews with judges at the ECJ, and visits to British and EU judicial archives. The influence of jurisprudence from myriad courts, both national and supranational, has been topic of discussion in the United States. This project provides a broader context for the American conversation by considering how ideas move within a national institution, between national and supranational institutions, and spread beyond the boundaries of the state in a country with legal officials who also see themselves as within a legal system distinct from the European system of which they are a part. The data collected during the course of this project will be made available to scholars.