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POLS/LSJ 367: Comparative Law and Courts

Instructor:                   Jonathan C. Beck
Office:                         Gowen 025
Office hours:               Wednesdays 1-3:00 p.m.
E-mail:                         jcbeck@uw.edu

Hybrid Online: Asynchronous Lectures, Synchronous Sections

Teaching Team:

Jintong Han (AF & AH): jtonghan@uw.edu 
Jessica Sciarone (AA & AB): jsciar@uw.edu 
Benjamin Soto (AC & AG): bensoto@uw.edu 
Yi Zhang (AD & AE): yiz42@uw.edu 

Course Overview

Are you interested in why law and courts matter for politics and policy? This course will introduce you to comparative judicial politics: how law, courts, and politics interact in countries throughout the world. The class is a core course in the Law, Societies and Justice program.

We begin by critically examining the (ideal) functions of courts: to provide for “order,” resolve disputes, and to enforce legal norms. We then turn to constitutional politics in democracies, asking whether and how constitutional courts have changed national policies and empowered individuals with new rights. Next, we study law and courts in supranational and international contexts, including the European Court of Human Rights, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, European Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court. We conclude the course by looking at developments in judicial politics in countries that are undergoing transitions to democracy, transitioning to some as yet undefined system, as well as those in non-democracies.

Required Reading: All required readings will be posted for free on Canvas. There are no required textbooks.