Precedents as Rules and Practice

What is a legal precedent? How are precedents formed and how do they shape legal outcomes? Over the last decades, a number of studies have appeared that take a socio-legal perspective on the practices of the use of precedents by national and international courts and that have both renewed and extended previous doctrinal discussions on the topic. Based on a conference, this edited volume brings together contributions with different approaches to the study of precedents as both “rules” and “practice”. Rather than studying the binding effect of precedent, the chapters investigate the various conditions of its formation, its forms, and its functions. In so doing, they employ a broad range of methods and add new perspectives to the discussion. Thus, the book not only offers, inter alia, an exploration of the legal actors of precedents and their environment but also gives insights into recent developments in legal methodology for using and studying precedents that is relevant for legal practice and academia alike. With contributions by William Hamilton Byrne, Harlan Grant Cohen, Martin Lolle Christensen, Amalie Frese, Georg Kodek, Raphaëlle Nollez-Goldbach, Henrik Palmer Olsen, Elina Paunio und Julius Schumann.