Highest Courts and Globalisation

About the Book

One of the main tasks of highest courts is the maintenance of legal coherency within the national legal system. Highest courts should also observe national legislation to be in conformity with the constitution and international treaties.

In the internationalising world of today, societies and legal systems increasingly interact. This has consequences for highest national courts which also increasingly interact with each other. The authors in this book investigate the implications of these phenomena for theory and practice. As leading scholars and distinguished judges they offer a unique and unprecedented perspective on the issue of highest courts and globalisation.

This book is therefore highly recommended to judges and practitioners in national and international courts, academics, parliamentarians and civil servants of national ministries of justice and the interior.​

Law of the Future Conferences

'Law of the Future' is the top level international and multidisciplinary conference series initiated by The Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law (HiiL). These conferences explore how law is changing and should change under the pressure of globalisation and internationalisation, and how the roles of international actors and stakeholders will or must change as a consequence. The 'Law of the Future' conference series bridges practice and academia. The Changing Role of Highest Courts in an Internationalising World was the theme of the October 2008 Law of the Future Conference, which was held in The Hague, The Netherlands.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: highest courts and globalisation A. S. Muller and S. W. Richards; Part I. The Practice of Highest Courts and Globalisation: 2. Trans-judicial dialogue in a global world G. Canivet; 3. The globalisation of the law and the work of the Supreme Court of Canada M. Bastarache; 4. The widening horizons of litigation in Britain Lord Bingham of Cornhill; 5. Judicial co-operation and communication in the context of the Hague Conventions W. Duncan; 6. Judicial globalisation: Supreme Court of India Justice Ajit Prakash Shah; Part II. The Theory of Highest Courts and Globalisation: 7. Accommodating unity H. P. Glenn; 8. Treating like cases alike in the world: the theoretical basis of the demand for legal unity J. Waldron; 9. Justice at a new scale: introducing a conceptual framework for the analysis of highest courts' role in a globalised context E. Mak; 10. The inevitable globalisation of constitutional law M. Tushnet; 11. Is the separation of powers the basis for the legitimacy of an internationalised judiciary? M. de S.-O.-l'E. Lasser; 12. Going global to preserve domestic accountability: the new role of national courts E. Benvenisti and G. W. Downs.

About the Author :
Sam Muller is Director of the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law. Sidney Richards was a Policy Officer at the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law, and now a PhD candidate at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge.