Irene Spigno - Böcker

This book provides a comparative analysis of how judgments from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) affect political participation and electoral justice at the national level. Looking at specific countries, the work analyses the legal impact the implementation of the ECtHR and the IACtHR judgments has, with a specific focus on cases in which the regional court concerned uses the “democratic argument,” that is, an argument related to democracy and political rights. The reasoning is that, although democracy is a much wider concept, judgments concerning violations of political rights and electoral justice provide reliable indicators to assess the status and sustainability of democracy in a State. Moreover, the analysis of the violations of political rights and electoral justice allows an in-depth comparison between the two regional human rights systems. Mindful of the broader scope of the fall-out generated by the non-implementation of judgments, including in socio-economic terms, the book includes a section exploring how judgments issued by the ECtHR and the IACtHR affect voters’ participation in the countries under their jurisdiction. To this end, an original dataset including the 47 Member States of the Council of Europe and the 20 countries which recognised the adjudicatory jurisdiction of the IACtHR is built. Multidisciplinary in aim and scope of analysis, the book will be an invaluable resource for researchers, academics, and policy-makers working in the areas of constitutional law, international human rights law, and political economy.

This book provides a comparative analysis of how judgments from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) affect political participation and electoral justice at the national level. Looking at specific countries, the work analyses the legal impact the implementation of the ECtHR and the IACtHR judgments has, with a specific focus on cases in which the regional court concerned uses the “democratic argument,” that is, an argument related to democracy and political rights. The reasoning is that, although democracy is a much wider concept, judgments concerning violations of political rights and electoral justice provide reliable indicators to assess the status and sustainability of democracy in a State. Moreover, the analysis of the violations of political rights and electoral justice allows an in-depth comparison between the two regional human rights systems. Mindful of the broader scope of the fall-out generated by the non-implementation of judgments, including in socio-economic terms, the book includes a section exploring how judgments issued by the ECtHR and the IACtHR affect voters’ participation in the countries under their jurisdiction. To this end, an original dataset including the 47 Member States of the Council of Europe and the 20 countries which recognised the adjudicatory jurisdiction of the IACtHR is built. Multidisciplinary in aim and scope of analysis, the book will be an invaluable resource for researchers, academics, and policy-makers working in the areas of constitutional law, international human rights law, and political economy.

Through a comparative analysis involving 13 countries from Africa, America, Asia and Europe, this book provides an invaluable assessment of women’s equality at the global level.The work focuses on formal constitutional provisions as well as the substantial level of protection women’s equality has achieved in the systems analysed. The investigations look at the relevant gender-related legislation, the participation of women in the institutional arena and the constitutional interpretation made by constitutional justice on gender issues. Furthermore, the book highlights women’s contributions in their roles as judges, parliamentarians, activists and academics, thus increasing the visibility of their participation in the public sphere.The work will be of interest to academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the areas of Constitutional Law, Comparative Law, Human Rights Law and Women’s and Gender Studies.

Through a comparative analysis involving 13 countries from Africa, America, Asia and Europe, this book provides an invaluable assessment of women’s equality at the global level.The work focuses on formal constitutional provisions as well as the substantial level of protection women’s equality has achieved in the systems analysed. The investigations look at the relevant gender-related legislation, the participation of women in the institutional arena and the constitutional interpretation made by constitutional justice on gender issues. Furthermore, the book highlights women’s contributions in their roles as judges, parliamentarians, activists and academics, thus increasing the visibility of their participation in the public sphere.The work will be of interest to academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the areas of Constitutional Law, Comparative Law, Human Rights Law and Women’s and Gender Studies.

WINNER of Book of the Year Prize by the International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism.This book represents a unique contribution to comparative legal studies by presenting the results of an empirical research project on the use of foreign precedents in constitutional interpretation in 31 jurisdictions worldwide.It expands and updates the outcomes presented in the previous successful book The Use of Foreign Precedents by Constitutional Judges, edited by Tania Groppi and Marie-Claire Ponthoreau and published in 2013 as Volume 1 of the series Hart Studies in Comparative Public Law.This new research, covering countries from all the continents, with special attention to some of the emerging jurisdictions of the Global South, confirms that the practice of making explicit use of foreign precedents is still limited both quantitatively and qualitatively. Judicial dialogue only exists in common law jurisdictions and, even there, ‘judicial bricolage’ is much more common than ‘judicial comparativism’. Since the previous edition, this practice has gone hand in hand with new developments in constitutional law, such as the democratic erosion and backsliding, the emergence of populist movements, the increasing role of regional human rights courts, which in many cases overshadowed foreign sources, and the end of a global vision of constitutionalism.Applying a quantitative and a qualitative analysis, with the support of tables and data, the book gives a more complete picture of the practice of citing foreign precedents in this new and challenging era, resulting in essential reading for comparative and constitutional legal scholars.