Selecting the cases that defined Europe: Complementary metrics for a network analysis
Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapport › Konferencebidrag i proceedings › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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Selecting the cases that defined Europe : Complementary metrics for a network analysis. / Tarissan, Fabien; Panagis, Yannis; Sadl, Urska.
Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ASONAM 2016. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2016. s. 661-668 7752308.Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapport › Konferencebidrag i proceedings › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - GEN
T1 - Selecting the cases that defined Europe
T2 - 2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ASONAM 2016
AU - Tarissan, Fabien
AU - Panagis, Yannis
AU - Sadl, Urska
PY - 2016/11/21
Y1 - 2016/11/21
N2 - Do case citations reflect the 'real' importance of individual judgments for the legal system concerned? This question has long been puzzling empirical legal scholars. Existing research typically studies case citation networks as a whole applying traditional network metrics stemming from graph theory. Those approaches are able to detect globally important cases, but since they do not take time explicitly into account, they cannot provide a comprehensive account of the dynamics behind the network structure and its evolution. In this paper we provide such a description, using two node importance metrics that take time into account to study important cases in the Court of Justice of the European Union over time. We then compare cases deemed as important by the metrics, with a set of 50 cases selected by the Court as the most important (landmark) cases. Our contribution is twofold. First, with regard to network science, we show that structural and time-related properties are complementary, and necessary to obtain a complete and nuanced picture of the citation network. Second, with regard to the case law of the Court, this study provides empirical evidence clarifying the motivation of the Court when selecting the landmark cases, revealing the importance of symbolic and historical cases in the selection. In addition, the temporal analysis sheds new light on the network properties specific to the landmark cases that distinguishes them from the rest of the cases. We validate our results by providing legal interpretations that sustain the highlights provided by the proposed network analysis.
AB - Do case citations reflect the 'real' importance of individual judgments for the legal system concerned? This question has long been puzzling empirical legal scholars. Existing research typically studies case citation networks as a whole applying traditional network metrics stemming from graph theory. Those approaches are able to detect globally important cases, but since they do not take time explicitly into account, they cannot provide a comprehensive account of the dynamics behind the network structure and its evolution. In this paper we provide such a description, using two node importance metrics that take time into account to study important cases in the Court of Justice of the European Union over time. We then compare cases deemed as important by the metrics, with a set of 50 cases selected by the Court as the most important (landmark) cases. Our contribution is twofold. First, with regard to network science, we show that structural and time-related properties are complementary, and necessary to obtain a complete and nuanced picture of the citation network. Second, with regard to the case law of the Court, this study provides empirical evidence clarifying the motivation of the Court when selecting the landmark cases, revealing the importance of symbolic and historical cases in the selection. In addition, the temporal analysis sheds new light on the network properties specific to the landmark cases that distinguishes them from the rest of the cases. We validate our results by providing legal interpretations that sustain the highlights provided by the proposed network analysis.
KW - Authority scores
KW - Average longevity
KW - Citation networks
KW - Directed acyclic graphs
KW - European Court of Justice
KW - Relative in-degree
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85006827324&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ASONAM.2016.7752308
DO - 10.1109/ASONAM.2016.7752308
M3 - Article in proceedings
AN - SCOPUS:85006827324
SP - 661
EP - 668
BT - Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ASONAM 2016
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Y2 - 18 August 2016 through 21 August 2016
ER -
ID: 203178041