Bringing the Outside inside: Macro and Micro Factors to Put the Dialogue among Highest Courts into its Right Context

Abstract

High courts have been front-running actors in breaking domestic boundaries and enacting cross-border dialogue. This seems to be due to several factors: the increasingly transnational nature of the law, the development of influential arenas and networks where judges - particularly those sitting in high courts - meet and exchange ideas and the fact that similar cases are submitted to different courts. This phenomenon, despite being hotly debated, is still in need of a comprehensive explanation. Why do judges follow behavioural patterns that increasingly seem to rely on the decisions and the arguments adopted by their colleagues working in foreign courts? This paper does not offer an ultimate answer to this complex question, but tries to highlight the institutional and professional conditions one can expect to play a significant role in encouraging the dialogue among European high courts.

Keywords

• neo-constitutionalism
• judicial politics
• dialogue
• high courts
• transnational law
• judicial appointment