Rob Van Gestel – författare

This timely book examines the increasing pressure on courts to protect underrepresented matters of public interest at the risk of political reprisals. Rob van Gestel provides critical insights into the role of courts amidst the escalating global trend of the judicialization of politics due to ineffective government legislatures. The book illustrates that courts cannot avoid policy-making in public interest cases, and demonstrates that the legitimacy of judicial lawmaking in these instances extends beyond a correct interpretation of the law.Chapters explore the different strategies used by judges across jurisdictions in Europe, the USA, India and South Africa to legitimize their decisions in contentious public interest cases. He discusses a number of global landmark cases, including the Urgenda Climate Case in the Netherlands and the Treatment Action Campaign Case on the prevention of HIV transmissions in South Africa.NGOs and lawyers engaging in public research litigation will greatly benefit from this insightful book, as will scholars who are interested in methods of judicial lawmaking. This book will also be a vital resource for judges, students and political scientists alike.

This timely book examines the increasing pressure on courts to protect underrepresented matters of public interest at the risk of political reprisals. Rob van Gestel provides critical insights into the role of courts amidst the escalating global trend of the judicialization of politics due to ineffective government legislatures. The book illustrates that courts cannot avoid policy-making in public interest cases, and demonstrates that the legitimacy of judicial lawmaking in these instances extends beyond a correct interpretation of the law.

Chapters explore the different strategies used by judges across jurisdictions in Europe, the USA, India and South Africa to legitimize their decisions in contentious public interest cases. He discusses a number of global landmark cases, including the Urgenda Climate Case in the Netherlands and the Treatment Action Campaign Case on the prevention of HIV transmissions in South Africa.

NGOs and lawyers engaging in public research litigation will greatly benefit from this insightful book, as will scholars who are interested in methods of judicial lawmaking. This book will also be a vital resource for judges, students and political scientists alike.

This book examines the uncertainties which arise when courts have to deal with complex empirical data and contested scientific evidence in public interest cases, but lack the necessary knowledge and training to do so. Expert contributors explore the strategies, methods and techniques applied by the courts to inform their decisions, reduce uncertainty and assist proportionality assessments.Moving beyond mainstream legal thinking, which evaluates whether courts should engage with policy making, the contributors investigate the ways in which courts are actively interacting with this process. Chapters explore how courts are often hesitant to collect empirical data or scientific evidence and yet sometimes rely on this kind of evidence too easily when it is brought by self-interested litigants. The contributors present solutions to make courts less dependent on the adversarial system, revealing how courts are eager to avoid a battle of the sciences. They analyse the dependence of courts on legal principles, the procedural rules which distribute the burden of proof and ways of outsourcing complex factual issues to third party experts.Judicial Policy Making, Empirical Data and Scientific Evidence is a vital resource for scholars and students of constitutional and administrative law, research methods and law and politics. It is also beneficial for practitioners dealing with cases involving empirical data and scientific evidence.

This book examines the uncertainties which arise when courts have to deal with complex empirical data and contested scientific evidence in public interest cases, but lack the necessary knowledge and training to do so. Expert contributors explore the strategies, methods and techniques applied by the courts to inform their decisions, reduce uncertainty and assist proportionality assessments.Moving beyond mainstream legal thinking, which evaluates whether courts should engage with policy making, the contributors investigate the ways in which courts are actively interacting with this process. Chapters explore how courts are often hesitant to collect empirical data or scientific evidence and yet sometimes rely on this kind of evidence too easily when it is brought by self-interested litigants. The contributors present solutions to make courts less dependent on the adversarial system, revealing how courts are eager to avoid a battle of the sciences. They analyse the dependence of courts on legal principles, the procedural rules which distribute the burden of proof and ways of outsourcing complex factual issues to third party experts.Judicial Policy Making, Empirical Data and Scientific Evidence is a vital resource for scholars and students of constitutional and administrative law, research methods and law and politics. It is also beneficial for practitioners dealing with cases involving empirical data and scientific evidence.

This book examines the uncertainties which arise when courts have to deal with complex empirical data and contested scientific evidence in public interest cases, but lack the necessary knowledge and training to do so. Expert contributors explore the strategies, methods and techniques applied by the courts to inform their decisions, reduce uncertainty and assist proportionality assessments.Moving beyond mainstream legal thinking, which evaluates whether courts should engage with policy making, the contributors investigate the ways in which courts are actively interacting with this process. Chapters explore how courts are often hesitant to collect empirical data or scientific evidence and yet sometimes rely on this kind of evidence too easily when it is brought by self-interested litigants. The contributors present solutions to make courts less dependent on the adversarial system, revealing how courts are eager to avoid a battle of the sciences. They analyse the dependence of courts on legal principles, the procedural rules which distribute the burden of proof and ways of outsourcing complex factual issues to third party experts.Judicial Policy Making, Empirical Data and Scientific Evidence is a vital resource for scholars and students of constitutional and administrative law, research methods and law and politics. It is also beneficial for practitioners dealing with cases involving empirical data and scientific evidence.

Although American scholars sometimes consider European legal scholarship as old-fashioned and inward-looking and Europeans often perceive American legal scholarship as amateur social science, both traditions share a joint challenge. If legal scholarship becomes too much separated from practice, legal scholars will ultimately make themselves superfluous. If legal scholars, on the other hand, cannot explain to other disciplines what is academic about their research, which methodologies are typical, and what separates proper research from mediocre or poor research, they will probably end up in a similar situation. Therefore we need a debate on what unites legal academics on both sides of the Atlantic. Should legal scholarship aspire to the status of a science and gradually adopt more and more of the methods, (quality) standards, and practices of other (social) sciences? What sort of methods do we need to study law in its social context and how should legal scholarship deal with the challenges posed by globalization?

Although American scholars sometimes consider European legal scholarship as old-fashioned and inward-looking and Europeans often perceive American legal scholarship as amateur social science, both traditions share a joint challenge. If legal scholarship becomes too much separated from practice, legal scholars will ultimately make themselves superfluous. If legal scholars, on the other hand, cannot explain to other disciplines what is academic about their research, which methodologies are typical, and what separates proper research from mediocre or poor research, they will probably end up in a similar situation. Therefore we need a debate on what unites legal academics on both sides of the Atlantic. Should legal scholarship aspire to the status of a science and gradually adopt more and more of the methods, (quality) standards, and practices of other (social) sciences? What sort of methods do we need to study law in its social context and how should legal scholarship deal with the challenges posed by globalization?

The preliminary reference procedure has long been envisaged as a judicial dialogue between the European Court of Justice and national courts. However, in reality the relationship appears to be closer to one of growing separation rather than to a happy marriage between equal partners. This book tries to find out: what is behind this? A study of the existing literature, combined with a case law analysis and interviews with judges, has shown that there are a number of important stumble blocks hindering the communication between these courts, such as language barriers, time constraints, and a failing digital infrastructure. However, on a deeper level there also appears to be a lack of mutual trust that prevents Supreme Administrative Courts from using the possibilities the procedure provides, such as the opportunity to offer provisional answers to the Court of Justice and the use of requests for clarification by the latter.

The preliminary reference procedure has long been envisaged as a judicial dialogue between the European Court of Justice and national courts. However, in reality the relationship appears to be closer to one of growing separation rather than to a happy marriage between equal partners. This book tries to find out: what is behind this? A study of the existing literature, combined with a case law analysis and interviews with judges, has shown that there are a number of important stumble blocks hindering the communication between these courts, such as language barriers, time constraints, and a failing digital infrastructure. However, on a deeper level there also appears to be a lack of mutual trust that prevents Supreme Administrative Courts from using the possibilities the procedure provides, such as the opportunity to offer provisional answers to the Court of Justice and the use of requests for clarification by the latter.

Legal academics in Europe publish a wide variety of materials including books, articles and essays, in an assortment of languages, and for a diverse readership. As a consequence, this variety can pose a problem for the evaluation of academic legal research. This thought-provoking book offers an overview of the legal and policy norms, methods and criteria applied in the evaluation of academic legal research, from a comparative perspective.The expert contributions explore developments relating to professional vs academic publications, editorial review vs peer review, rankings of journals and law schools vs other reputation mechanisms and a range of other evaluation practices and their intended and unintended effects. Analysing research evaluation practices across more than ten jurisdictions and multiple contexts, this insightful book reveals how evaluation practices differ across Europe. Through this analysis, the book exposes a range of possibilities for further debate and study. Engaging and topical, Evaluating Academic Legal Research in Europe will be valuable reading for legal academics, university and faculty managers, higher-education policy-makers and administrators as well as editors of law journals, legal publishers and research foundation and funding bodies.Contributors include: A. Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, K. Byland, D. Costa, J. Hojnik, P. Letto-Vanamo, A. Lienhard, D. Mac Síthigh, E. Maier, G. Peruginelli, N. Petersen, K. Purnhagen, A. Ruda Gonzalez, M. Schmied, M. Snel, R. van Gestel