This article is one of very few attempts to empirically measure legal interpretation. It maps the application of eleven interpretation elements (good faith, ordinary meaning, object and purpose, etc.) in Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) across ten International Criminal Court case studies. The elements were coded for identity and sequence of element, and amount of text used in applying each element. The mapping and analysis reveal, among other things, that the application of the VCLT across cases is markedly inconsistent and, in some instances, opaque and arguably unjustifiable. The results suggest, at least based on this small sample, that the ICC’s current practice of applying the accommodating, flexible methodology of the VCLT may be inconsistent with the requirement of strict construction in Article 22 of the Rome Statute, and that even when strict construction does not technically apply, a more systematic, transparent, and robust approach should nevertheless still be followed.

This special issue of the German Law Journal showcases through concrete examples the conceptual and methodological toolbox that social anthropology has to offer and the added value of applying an anthropologically informed approach to legal thinking, argumentation, and practice. The contributions address a wide variety of highly topical, controversial social issues that are at the heart of the human condition, including gender recognition for non-binary people, family disputes brought before international courts, non-majoritarian language use in administrative settings, forced migration, and the impact of climate change and infrastructural development on local communities worldwide. This introduction outlines the research program into which the contributions gathered here fit; the choice of topics; and finally, the challenges the authors face in the process of integrating their intellectual encounter with anthropology into their reflections on law. The article concludes that taking recourse to anthropology can help jurists trained in state law to develop a more refined understanding of today’s societal complexity and challenges and, ultimately, to reach more nuanced, sensitive, and just decisions.

Do states take court decisions into account when formulating policies? If so, how do they process new judicial input and make policies in response to them? While self-interest and incentives are the usual elements involved in a rational choice explanation of policymaking, behavioralist scholarship casts doubt on whether decisionmakers are able to identify and pursue their interests in a rational manner. We draw on rational and behavioral approaches to formulate different expectations about the process of policymaking and updating in the context of maritime delimitation. We focus on how states formulate policies about the appropriate method of maritime delimitation given relevant decisions of the International Court of Justice. Using a dataset of continental shelf delimitation policies, we find evidence that at least some states change policies in line with court decisions. However, we are unable to distinguish between mechanisms consistent with rational choice and those suggested by behavioralism. We discuss why behavioralist explanations of policymaking processes are difficult to test in a large-N setting. Moreover, we discuss why additional evidence from interviews also proves insufficient, notably due to actors’ tendency to rationalize state policies. We end by suggesting how these problems can be addressed in future research.

The COVID-19 crisis has been accompanied by an extensive use of indicators, such as those related to COVID infections and deaths, but also a good number of COVID policy indicators. This paper discusses these indicators from the perspective of a legal scholar with an interest (and some expertise) in comparative law and empirical legal studies. This means that this paper does not engage in the details concerning epidemiological and medical issues of COVID infections and deaths. Rather, it focuses on two main issues: first, it develops and maps a general causal scheme of indicators and their underlying real-world phenomena in the COVID crisis; second, it shows how such a causal scheme has been, and can be, applied in comparative empirical legal research. Yet, it also notes the difficulties of proving causal relationships and some attempts to overcome them.

The paper investigates and theorises different forms and patterns of resistance to international courts (ICs) and develops an analytical framework for explaining their variability. In order to make intelligible the resistance that many ICs are currently facing, the paper first unpacks the concept of resistance. It then introduces a key distinction between mere pushback from individual Member States or other actors, seeking to influence the future direction of a court's case-law, and actual backlash – a critique triggering significant institutional reform or even the dismantling of tribunals. On the basis on the proposed theoretical framework, the paper provides a roadmap for empirical studies of resistance to ICs, considering the key contextual factors necessary to take into account in such studies.

A recent editorial in this journal stressed the need to rearticulate the methodology – and thereby the distinctiveness – of international law in the context of blurring disciplinary lines between international law and international relations. The aim of this article is to contribute to the methodological aspect of the debate. First, the article outlines a legal empirical approach, which complements legal methodology of international law with empirical tools and techniques such as citation network analysis and corpus linguistics. Second, the article applies the approach on the case law of two European courts: the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). It demonstrates how the study of case citations and the language of courts enhance the validity, reliability, and transparency of the established legal method. In particular, scholars of international law gain a stable and complete quantitative basis for a further in-depth study of case law, precedent and interpretation. Additional benefit stems from a set of transparent criteria by which to criticize the jurisprudence of international courts. Firmer ground emerges from which to evaluate the courts’ role in the political process, their societal impact and their legitimacy. At the same time the approach preserves the main features of the distinct legal methodology of international law – especially its attention to legal detail.

Commission Regulation (EC) No 2273/2003 regulates price stabilisation activities for equity initial public offerings (IPOs) in Europe as a form of permitted market manipulation. To test the actual practices and effects of stabilisation we empirically analyse the support provided by underwriters of 141 Italian IPOs from 2000 through to 2008. We find that underwriters support the share prices not only by short covering, but also by posting pure stabilisation bids. Pure short covering is mostly used by more reputable underwriters for IPOs with higher institutional participation and more secondary shares in the offer, whereas the opposite is true for pure stabilization IPOs. We try to identify some patterns in underwriters' aftermarket activities and analyse the extent to which the stabilisation activity, permitted for four weeks after trading begins, produces temporary or permanent effects on share prices.