Resources and Organizations

APSA Law and Courts

Our section promotes innovative teaching and research about Law and Courts within and beyond the American Political Science Association. We aim to develop a culture of scholarly excellence and inclusion where all individuals are respected, treated fairly, supported, and offered equitable opportunities to excel. We are committed to diverse scholarship, ideas, and methodologies. We believe that continued top-down and grassroots efforts are needed to improve the representation of women, people of color, and gender and sexual minorities in our section. Such efforts foster a more innovative, integrated, and competitive field.

Website: http://lawcourts.org/wordpress/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCourtsAPSA

Law and Society

The Law and Society Association is an interdisciplinary scholarly organization committed to social scientific, interpretive, and historical analyses of law across multiple social contexts. For sociolegal scholars, law consists not only of the words of official documents. Law also can be found in the diverse understandings and practices of people interacting within domains that law governs, in the claims that people make for legal redress of injustices, and in the coercive power exercised to enforce lawful order. Sociolegal scholars also address evasions of law, resistance and defiance toward law, and alternatives to law in structuring social relations.

Annual Meetings are a central aspect of LSA’s activities, providing an unparalleled opportunity for Law & Society scholars to connect and exchange ideas. LSA communities bring together sociolegal scholars with a wide variety of perspectives, expertise, and interests. By fostering theoretical, methodological, and policy discussions, these collaborations work to strengthen law and social science scholarship. LSA’s intellectual communities organize sessions for the Annual Meetings and develop cross-disciplinary and cross-national research projects.

Website: https://www.lawandsociety.org

PluriCourts

PluriCourts studies the legitimacy of international courts and tribunals (ICs) from legal, political science and philosophical perspectives. The centre explores the normative, legal and empirical soundness of charges of illegitimacy, to understand and assess how ICs do, could and should respond. PluriCourts explores the multidimensional legitimacy standards  which include multilevel separation of authority, independence and accountability, performance and comparative advantages.

Website: https://www.jus.uio.no/pluricourts/english/

Twitter: @PluriCourts

JUDICON-EU

JUDICON-EU is an international comparative research project that aims to map the diversity and measure the strength of judicial decisions, as well as explain judicial behavior vis-á-vis the legislative branch in Europe. Based on the dataset containing all relevant decisions of the European constitutional courts between 1990 and 2020, the project will be able to test quantitatively various models of judicial behavior like the attitudinal model, internal or external strategist models. The JUDICON-EU project’s comprehensive dataset will allow the participants and external researchers to give a clue to judicial behavior in Europe. JUDICON-EU is a joint project of the National University of Public Service and the Centre for Social Sciences (HAS Centre of Excellence). It is funded by the National University of Public Service for the time period 2020-2022.

Website: https://judiconeu.uni-nke.hu/about

Institute for African Women in Law

Since being established in 2015, The Institute has grown into an organization with a dynamic team of passionate individuals committed to our vision and mission to grow into a global organization dedicated to using the law for positive societal change and development. We are enhancing the capacity of women for positive change through out building a network of legal professionals devoted to using the law as a tool for positive societal change and development.

Website: https://www.africanwomeninlaw.com/about-us

The International Society for Public Law (ICON-S)

ICON-S is an international learned society with members from all around the globe. Members include scholars in all fields of law and beyond to the humanities and social sciences, and at all levels of seniority, from students to emeritus faculty. ICON-S provides its members with the best avenues for building meaningful relationships and exchanging ideas internationally to advance its mission.

Website: https://www.icon-society.org

The International Academy of Comparative Law

The Academy considers the stimulation of research in comparative law throughout the world to be its main role. In his famous article in the Mélanges Lambert, the great British comparatist Gutteridge emphasized three characteristics which he found to be central in comparative law: the importance of the discipline as a factor in relations among peoples; its utility for law reform, and its role in legal education. The Academy contributes to each of these three great facets of the discipline. Congresses of the Academy have reached to most parts of the globe: they took place in Europe until 1970; thereafter in Asia, in 1974, in 2012 and in 2018; in the Americas in 1982, 1990, 2008, 2010, 2016 and soon in 2022; in Australia in 1986 and 2002; and soon in Africa in 2021. The new Executive Committee has fixed among its main goals opening to Africa. This confirms the worldwide vocation of the Academy which, while evolving, has always sought to preserve the ideals that inspired its founders.

Website: https://aidc-iacl.org

The American Society of Comparative Law

The American Society of Comparative Law, Inc. (ASCL) is the leading organization promoting the study of comparative law. Founded in 1951, it is a thriving organization of about 100 institutional sponsor members, both in the United States and abroad, and a growing number of individual members. It is a member in good standing of the American Council of Learned Societies and International Association of Legal Science.

The Society publishes The American Journal of Comparative Law, the outstanding publication of scholarship on comparative law. The ASCL also publishes a comparative law book series. It holds annual meetings at which comparative law scholars present research and critically examine important legal issues from a comparative perspective. In addition, it provides support to and organizes other scholarly conferences and workshops both in the United States and internationally that deal with comparative law. Each year, the Society’s prizes recognize exceptional publications and other contributions by comparative law scholars. The Society also promotes the exchange of information and opinion among students of comparative law through its website and on social media, and provides networking opportunities to young and established comparative law scholars.

In more formal terms, The American Society of Comparative Law, Inc. (originally incorporated as the American Association for the Comparative Study of Law, Inc.), is an organization of institutional and individual members devoted to research and writing on foreign and comparative law as well as private international law.

Website: https://ascl.org

The Hague Academy of International Law

The Hague Academy of International Law was officially inaugurated almost a century ago, on 14 July 1923, in the Netherlands. The Academy is undoubtedly a “high-level teaching institution” where courses, seminars, conferences, visits of the Peace Palace, embassies, international institutions, and exchanges on a wide variety of topics, continue unabated throughout the entire year. Courses are given by the world’s most eminent and renowned professors of international law, judges and specialists.

 A multitude of students from all over the world come to the Academy and this makes it a truly unique institution. Almost 700 attendees of approximately 100 different nationalities follow the famous “Summer Courses on Public and Private International Law” every year in July and August, in the magnificent Auditorium, where simultaneous translation in English and French is provided. Later on in the Summer, the Centre for Studies and Research opens its doors to around 20 young research students from all walks of life, who, under the direction of two experts, undertake advanced research work that is crowned by a publication, each year on a different legal topic. This is followed, generally in Autumn, by the now famous specialized Advanced Course, which recently has dealt with certain aspects of international criminal law, and finally, the generous External Programme, when the Academy exports itself abroad for a week of courses on a chosen theme. In January 2019, an event of major significance took place, namely the inauguration of the Academy’s first session of Winter Courses, conceived along the same lines as the Summer Courses, for a duration of three weeks. It marked an important and memorable moment in the history of the Academy who has since then made its courses accessible to an even larger number of attendees

Website: https://www.hagueacademy.nl