Conference: Judicial Independence and Rule of Law Across the Globe

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Judicial independence and rule of law are pillars of liberal democracy. Constitutional democracies around the world face powerful political forces exerted by populist and nationalist movements and the authoritarian leaders that these movements catapult into power. These same forces also target systems of international governance, inducing governments to undermine the operation and legitimacy of international tribunals if not withdraw altogether from the treaties that give rise to these systems. Courts are expected to serve as bulwarks against authoritarian and illiberal impulses, defend the rule of law, and uphold constitutional and international rules-based orders. Understanding how they can perform these essential functions even as courts, themselves, become sites of populist, political contestation and targets of well-orchestrated attacks is critical to protecting legal orders against populist subversion. The international scope of the threat demands a scholarly effort that transcends the context of any single country and also considers how the erosion of judicial independence and rule of law at the national level affects the future of a rules-based, international order that rests on the existence of functioning liberal democracies. This effort requires the sort of robust exchange that can only occur through in-person dialogue among a diverse array of researchers who come from all parts of the world and that includes the perspectives of early-career scholars and scholars from traditionally-underrepresented groups as well as internationally renowned experts.The populist threats posed to judicial independence and rule of law in both the developed and developing world offers an opportunity to examine the vulnerabilities and resilience of judicial institutions in a wide variety of political systems. Scholars will convene under the auspices of the International Political Science Association’s Research Committee on Comparative Judicial Studies to examine how authoritarian and populist pressures are challenging, transforming, and reinforcing judicial independence and rule of law. Using law and social science approaches, participants will examine these phenomena across a range of jurisdictions. They will bring detailed, locally-informed knowledge to bear upon a set of core questions concerning the nature of the populist threats, forms of attack, and conditions under which these attacks succeed or fail. How do populist political dynamics compare across countries, and what are the implications of these differences for courts? Under what conditions do populists target courts and the rule of law? What factors shape the forms of these attacks and the abilities of courts to withstand them? And, how well do existing concepts, theories, and research methods serve these lines of inquiry? This gathering provides a unique opportunity to engage these questions from a distinctly comparative perspective and generate insights into how judicial independence and the rule of law are institutionalized, how they are threatened, and what can be done to counter the threats. This collaborative effort will advance scholarly debates on how courts respond to populist assaults and democratic backsliding as well as inform efforts of court reformers, bar associations, and policymakers to institute the changes needed to re-empower courts whose independence has been breached.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.