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Precedent on International Courts : A Network Analysis of Case Citations by the European Court of Human Rights

Political scientists have paid little attention to the manner by which international courts justify their decisions and develop legal norms. We argue that, like domestic review courts, the international courts use legal justifications at least in part to convince “lower” (domestic) courts of the legitimacy of judgments. Several empirical observations are consistent with this view, which we examine through a network analysis of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) citations. First, the Court cites precedent based on the legal issues in the case, not the country of origin. Second, the Court is more careful to embed judgments in its existing case law with respect to the more politically sensitive decisions and in cases from countries with common law legal systems. Acknowledgements: Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the University of California at San Diego, Cornell University, the 2010 International Studies Association Annual Convention, and the 2010 Political Networks Conference. We thank the participants in these seminars and Anna Dolidze, Asif Efrat, James Fowler, Larry Helfer, Sarah Kreps, Mitchel Lasser, for useful comments and suggestions. All remaining errors can be blamed on the authors.