This Handbook presents a comparative study of foreign judges on domestic courts, examining the practice and its implications for adjudication, judicial identity and judicial independence and accountability. The Handbook will interest scholars of comparative law and judicial studies, as well as judges, lawyers and historians.

A former British colony, The Gambia became independent in 1965 and has had only three presidents since then. While The Gambia remained a very poor country under its first prime minister and then president (from 1970), Sir Dawda Jawara, democratic institutions survived, multi-party elections were free and fair, and the country’s human rights record was excellent. In contrast, there were seriously flawed elections and extensive human rights abuses under first the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council and then President Yahya Jammeh. Since Adama Barrow became president in 2017, democratic rule and fair elections have been restored, although many challenges remain; for example, the 2020 Constitution has still not been implemented. This book examines all aspects of recorded Gambian history from the 15th century, when the first European expeditions arrived, to the present. Historical Dictionary of The Gambia, Sixth Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 1,000 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the country’s politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about The Gambia.

This handbook provides a comprehensive road map to China's engagement with international law and an upgraded bridge between Chinese and Western approaches in times of turmoil. Written by a leading group of Chinese and Western specialists, it examines how China is assimilating into, and putting its stamp on, the global legal order. It offers updated analyses of China's relationship with international institutions, human rights law, international trade law, the law of the sea, the laws of peace and war, international criminal law, global health law, international investment law, international environmental law, climate change, international terrorism law, outer-space law, intellectual property law, cyber-space warfare, international financial law, international dispute settlement, territorial disputes, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Community of Shared Future for Mankind, China's constitutional law, the judicial application of international law, state immunity, the international rule of law, China's treaty practices and the extraterritorial application of Chinese laws.

This book explores the use of foreign judges on courts of constitutional jurisdiction in 9 Pacific states: Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. We often assume that the judges sitting on domestic courts will be citizens. However across the island states of the Pacific, over three-quarters of all judges are foreign judges who regularly hear cases of constitutional, legal and social importance. This has implications for constitutional adjudication, judicial independence and the representative qualities of judges and judiciaries. Drawing together detailed empirical research, legal analysis and constitutional theory, it traces how foreign judges bring different dimensions of knowledge to bear on adjudication, face distinctive burdens on their independence, and hold only an attenuated connection to the state and its people. It shows how foreign judges have come to be understood as representatives of a transnational profession, with its own transferrable judicial skills and values. Foreign Judges in the Pacific sheds light on the widespread but often unarticulated assumptions about the significance of nationality to the functions and qualities of constitutional judges. It shows how the nationality of judges matters, not only for the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Pacific courts that use foreign judges, but for legal and theoretical scholarship on courts and judging.

Comparative law is a common subject-matter of research and teaching in many universities around the world, and the twenty-first century has aptly been termed 'the era of comparative law'. This Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Law presents a truly global perspective of comparative law today. The contributors are drawn from all parts of the world to provide different perspectives on how we understand the 'law' and how it operates in practice. In substance, the Handbook contains 36 chapters covering a broad range of topics, divided under the following headings: 'Methods of Comparative Law' (Part I), 'Legal Families and Geographical Comparisons' (Part II), 'Central Themes in Comparative Law' (Part III); and 'Comparative Law beyond the State' (Part IV).

Building upon the growing body of scholarship on the factors and actors that influence the extent to which states implement human rights law, this cutting-edge Research Handbook takes an interdisciplinary approach to exploring the roles of actors within supranational human rights bodies, the decisions and judgements they make, and the tools they use to facilitate human rights implementation.

Completely revised and updated, the New Cambridge Handbook of Contemporary China is an indispensable and manageable guide to the world's most populous nation. Emphasising the period from the 1990s, the book covers and includes the following subjects: a chronology detailing events since 1949; politics and law; biographies of eminent individuals; an annotated bibliography of books, journals and websites relevant to China in the 1990s and beyond; foreign relations, especially with the United States and Russia; the economy, including China's main economic reform programs and objectives; education; population and a gazetteer. With an excellent selection of figures, diagrams and maps, this book will be the standard reference to contemporary China for students, teachers, journalists, travelers, academic and government researchers, business people, policy-makers and general readers.

The European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) suffers from the burgeoning caseload and challenges to its authority. This two-pronged crisis undermines the ECtHR’s legitimacy and consequently the functioning of the whole European human rights regime. Domestic courts can serve as welcome allies of the Strasbourg Court. They have a potential to diffuse Convention norms domestically, and therefore prevent and filter many potential human rights violations. Yet, we know very little about how domestic courts actually treat the Strasbourg Court’s rulings. This book brings unique empirical findings on how often, how and with what consequences domestic judges work with the ECtHR’s case law. It moves beyond the narrow concept of compliance and develops a new three-level methodology for analysing the role played by domestic courts in the implementation of ECtHR case law. Moreover, using the example of Czechia, it shifts the attention from Western countries to a more volatile Central and Eastern European region, which has recently witnessed democratic backsliding and backlash against international checks on human rights and the rule of law standards. Looking at a wider social and legal context, this book identifies factors helping transitional countries to adapt to regional human rights regimes. The work will be an essential resource for students, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of Constitutional law, Politics and Human Rights law. Its global appeal is enhanced by the methodological framework which is applicable in other international systems.

A comprehensive analysis of the extent, method, purpose and effects of domestic and international courts' judicial dialogue on human rights.

The first book-length work to provide a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the ICC's jurisdiction over nationals of non-States Parties.