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Why do judges disagree about judicial reasoning – i.e., the use of legal reasoning in adjudication – and how can such disagreement be studied empirically? We propose a general theory of variation in judicial reasoning that focuses on a core element of legal analysis – the choice of authoritative sources. In particular, we argue that source-based disagreement is likely to manifest itself on two dimensions: The degree to which extra-national versus national and extra-legislative versus legislative sources should be relied on. Where judges place themselves on these dimensions have important normative implications for the origin of and power over law, and in particular the status and power of the national legislator. We demonstrate the strength and usefulness of our theory with original data from more than 3400 judicial opinions of the Swedish Supreme Court over a 40-year period. We find that Justices’ backgrounds, in terms of when they went to law school and professional pre-appointment experience, are correlated with their placement on these two dimensions in theoretically expected ways.

Party-appointed arbitrators (PAAs) are a common, but controversial feature of many arbitral systems. The main point of contention is whether parties can and do use their power to appoint one of the arbitrators in a way that undermines impartial, equal, and fair arbitration. While the scholarly debate on PAAs is old and vast, claims made have been subject to limited empirical testing. Using the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) as a case study, this article empirically explores the e!ects of arbitrator appointments on arbitration outcomes and the relevance of arbitrator experience, arbitrator attitudes, and party capability on party success. In doing so, this study finds that arbitrator experience and attitudes a!ect outcomes and that this can be exploited by parties when selecting arbitrators. Importantly, the study also finds that the ability to make use of this strategic opportunity depends on parties’ capability. While PAAs may be less problematic in arbitration between parties of equal capability, this finding calls into serious question the fairness and legitimacy of using PAAs in arbitration where there is a disparity in capability between the parties.

I turbulenta tider, då grundläggande rättigheter och begränsningar för maktutövning utmanas, ökar betydelsen av de gränser som den konstitutionella rätten ställer upp för utövandet av offentlig makt. Samtidigt blir det konstitutionellrättsliga läget allt mer komplext, inte minst på grund av europarättens inflytande.

Konstitutionell rätt behandlar den konstitutionella rättens tre centrala teman: maktdelning och andra förutsättningar för utövande av offentlig makt, skyddet för grundläggande rättigheter samt rättsligt genomdrivande av konstitutionellrättsliga normer. Utifrån dessa tre teman behandlar författarna konstitutionella bestämmelser med ursprung i svensk nationell rätt, EU-rätten och Europakonventionen om mänskliga rättigheter.

Boken är anpassad för att kunna användas som lärobok på juristutbildningen, men riktar sig också till en bredare publik. Konstitutionell rätt är relevant läsning för såväl erfarna jurister som läsare som är intresserade av konstitutionella frågor mer allmänt. Denna tredje upplaga är påtagligt omarbetad och utvidgad.

We argue that negative references to amicus curiae briefs in high court judgments - instances where a court explicitly signals disagreement with the legal arguments in such briefs - are a significant and understudied feature of judicial reasoning. We theorize that such references may provide courts with a tool for increasing the precision of its case law, fostering its legitimacy, and increasing compliance pressure. Our empirical analysis of the Court of Justice of the European Union indicates that negative references are used both to boost its legitimacy and to specify not only what the law is, but what it is not.

This contribution aims to explain the puzzling finding that the principle of legality is one of the general principles included in sports’ transnational legal order, also known as lex sportiva. It follows from the case law of the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) that the principle applies to and limits the power of sports governing bodies to govern their respective sports. This development can partially be explained by the demands of national and international state-based legal orders, and primarily European ones, but not exclusively. The chapter argues that adopting a thicker understanding of legality is ultimately in the interests of sports, sports actors and transnational sports law.

Legal research has historically relied on the manual and systematic study of authoritative texts, a methodology that has remained largely unchanged despite technological advancements. However, recent developments in natural language processing and other data-driven approaches present new opportunities for legal scholars. This essay examines whether and how these computational tools can complement doctrinal approaches and explores the potential of computational methods to enhance and transform legal scholarship. In emphasizing the compatibility of computational and doctrinal approaches, it argues that by integrating these approaches, legal scholars can make scientific discoveries beyond the scope of either method alone. The essay concludes by outlining the steps necessary for legal scholarship to fully embrace and benefit from these emerging technologies.

This open access book explores the complexity of the lex sportiva, the transnational legal regime governing international sports. Pioneering in its approach, it maps out the many entanglements of the transnational governance of sports with European legal processes and norms. The contributors trace the embeddedness of the lex sportiva within national law, European Union law and the European Convention on Human Rights. While the volume emphasizes the capacity of sports governing bodies to leverage the resources of national law to spread the lex sportivaglobally, it also points at the fact that European legal processes are central when challenging the status quo as illustrated recently in the Semenya and Superleague cases. Ultimately, the book is also a vantage point to start critically investigating the Eurocentricity and the complex materiality underpinning the lex sportiva.

Research of judges and courts traditionally centers on judgments, treating each judgment as a unit of observation. However, judgments often address multiple distinct and more or less unrelated issues. Studying judicial behavior on a judgment level therefore loses potentially important details and risks drawing false conclusions from the data. We present a method to assist researchers with splitting judgments by issues using a supervised machine learning classifier. Applying our approach to splitting judgments by the Court of Justice of the European Union into issues, we show that this approach is practically feasible and provides benefits for text-based analysis of judicial behavior.