Legitimising a ‘zombie idea’: childhood vaccines and autism – the complex tale of two judgments on vaccine injury in Italy

The impact of ‘bad’ science on judicial decision-making is a thorny aspect of the relationship between science and law. This study employs doctrinal and empirical analysis to explore two Italian judgments that asserted a causal link between childhood vaccines and autism. Using a combination of actor–network theory and legal pragmatism, we uncovered a network of actors and institutions internal and external to the legal system enabling these impactful decisions that went on to contribute to a crisis in vaccination coverage in Italy. These include trial strategies, resources, communication practices between arms of government, awareness and responsiveness of institutional actors, and institutional mechanisms governing the integration of scientific expertise into the legal process. By forensically analysing how a ‘zombie idea’ received a patent of legitimacy in the Italian context, this study provides useful lessons for legal systems grappling with complex and contested public health matters.

The Theory and Practice of Precedent in International Adjudication: A View from Ukraine

This article argues that legal pragmatism and realism are the methodological basis for considering the law-making function of international courts. Classical scientific approaches, the representatives of which view courts only as applicators of the law, do not allow research into the nature and role of international adjudicative bodies. Since there are several positions on the nature, content, and legal force of the precedent decisions of international adjudicative bodies (the are both diametrically opposed and, to some extent, similar), the author takes a position that considers the characteristics of modern international relations. The author proposes to classify international judicial precedents by considering the construction of judicial institutions and the legal force of decisions because these criteria reflect the nature and significance of such decisions. The classification divides precedents into vertical and horizontal (persuasive). The author argues that vertical precedent set by a particular body of international justice can be absolute, i.e., a structurally lower judicial body can, under no circumstances and exceptions, make a decision without taking into account the legal conclusions made by the higher judicial body. Vertical international judicial precedent may also be relative, i.e., in certain circumstances, a higher judicial body may make a different decision in a similar case, which suggests no obligation to be bound by its own previous decisions. Analysis of the decisions of many international courts has led to the conclusion that international courts create judicial precedents of persuasive content. In particular, the author uses decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that contain citations of the Court’s own legal positions and the International Court of Justice’s legal positions. It is proved that the so-called horizontal precedent is a persuasive precedent, the content of the legal provisions of which is based on the authority of the cited international court’s decisions. Thus, international judicial precedent not only exists but must be recognised legally because only the formal enshrinement of the legal force of such decisions will lead to the recognition of judicial precedent as a formal source of international law.

Legal Pragmatism – A Useful and Adequate Explanatory Model for Danish Adjudication on Tax Avoidance?

The author explores whether legal pragmatism may function as a useful and adequate explanatory model for the case law on tax avoidance unfolding in the Danish Supreme Court. In doing so, the underlying ideas of philosophical and legal pragmatism are initially re-visited while the general interpretational approach of the Danish judiciary is briefly outlined. Subsequently, the general approach to interpretation of Danish tax law is presented and the prevailing opinions on tax avoidance in the Danish doctrine are touched upon. This provide the necessary foundation for the following legal analysis of the Danish Supreme Courts’ case law on tax avoidance. Based on this analysis, it is concluded that legal pragmatism may actually function as a useful and adequate explanatory model for the Danish Supreme Court's case law on tax avoidance. Awareness of this pragmatic inclination may facilitate a better understanding of the Danish Supreme Court's approach in difficult cases on tax avoidance and enhance the possibilities of predicting the outcome of such cases.

Crisis of Secularism and Changing Contours of Minority Politics in India

This paper examines the changing nature of Muslim political mobilization in contemporary India in the context of Hindu nationalism’s ascendancy into power and the consequent crisis of traditional Muslim politics. Through an ethnographic case study of the Popular Front of India, we argue that a qualitatively new form of political mobilization is taking place among Indian Muslims centered on an articulation of “self-defense” against a “Hindu nationalist threat.” This politics of self-defense is constructed on the reconciliation of two contradictory processes: use of extensive legal pragmatism, and defensive ethnicization based on Islamic identity. The paper also examines the consequences of the emerging politics of competing ethnicization for even a normative and minimal idea of secularism and how it contributes to the process of decoupling of secularism and democracy in contemporary India.