Conference: Judicial Independence and Rule of Law Across the Globe

会议：全球司法独立与法治

• 批准号: 2227624
• 负责人: Rhonda Evans
• 金额: $ 2.2万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-15 至 2025-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2227624&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Conference; Judicial; Independence; Rule; Law

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.

司法独立和法治是自由民主的支柱。世界各地的宪政民主国家面临着民粹主义和民族主义运动以及这些运动所推动的独裁领导人所施加的强大政治力量。这些力量还把目标对准国际治理体系，诱使各国政府破坏国际法庭的运作和合法性，如果不完全退出产生这些体系的条约的话。人们期望法院成为抵制专制和狭隘冲动的堡垒，捍卫法治，维护宪法和基于规则的国际秩序。了解法院如何在法院本身成为民粹主义、政治迫害的场所和精心策划的攻击目标的情况下履行这些基本职能，对于保护法律的秩序不受民粹主义颠覆至关重要。这一威胁的国际范围需要一种超越任何一个国家背景的学术努力，并考虑国家一级司法独立和法治的侵蚀如何影响基于规则的国际秩序的未来，这种秩序依赖于自由民主国家的存在。这一努力需要一种强有力的交流，这种交流只能通过来自世界各地的各种研究人员之间的面对面对话来进行，其中包括早期职业学者和传统学者的观点。在发达国家和发展中国家，对司法独立和法治构成的民粹主义威胁提供了一个机会，审查各种政治制度中司法机构的脆弱性和复原力。学者们将在国际政治学协会比较司法研究研究委员会的主持下召开会议，研究威权主义和民粹主义压力如何挑战，改变和加强司法独立和法治。使用法律和社会科学的方法，与会者将检查这些现象在一系列司法管辖区。他们将带来详细的，当地知情的知识，以承担一系列核心问题，涉及民粹主义威胁的性质，攻击形式，以及这些攻击成功或失败的条件。民粹主义政治动态在各国之间如何比较，这些差异对法院有何影响？民粹主义者在什么情况下会把目标对准法院和法治？哪些因素决定了这些攻击的形式以及法院抵御这些攻击的能力？现有的概念、理论和研究方法在多大程度上服务于这些调查？这次聚会提供了一个独特的机会，从一个独特的比较角度来处理这些问题，并产生深入了解司法独立和法治是如何制度化的，它们是如何受到威胁的，以及可以做些什么来应对这些威胁。这种合作努力将推动关于法院如何应对民粹主义攻击和民主倒退的学术辩论，并为法院改革者，律师协会，和政策制定者制定所需的变化，以重新-授权独立性受到侵犯的法院。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持的搜索.