Oñati Socio-Legal Series Volume on "Comparative Socio-Legal Perspectives on Judicial Decision Making and Gender Justice"

In May, 2017, I participated in a fantastic international workshop at the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law in Spain. The workshop brought together participants from the various international Feminist Judgments Projects. Collectively, these projects focus on rewriting judicial opinions from a feminist perspective using the same law and facts in existence at the time the initial case was decided. Projects in Canada, England, Australia, the U.S., Ireland and New Zealand have resulted in published volumes of rewritten judgments. There are ongoing projects devoted to international law, as well as the law of Scotland, India and Mexico.

The first U.S. book focused on rewriting decisions of the United States Supreme Court. It inspired a series of subject-matter specific books. Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. There are volumes at various stages of development devoted to U.S. law in the areas of torts, employment discrimination, reproductive justice, family law, health law, and trusts & estates.

The May 2017 in-person meeting of representatives of the various jurisdictional projects resulted in the publication of a thought-provoking set of papers (edited by Linda Berger, Kathy Stanchi and me). All papers went through a double-blind peer review process with two external referees, which was a new (and positive) experience for me as an editor. All of the papers are open-access.  Here's the table of contents (with links to papers):

The Oñati Socio-Legal Series Vol 8, No 9 (2018): Feminist Judgments: Comparative Socio-legal Perspectives on Judicial Decision Making and Gender Justice

Issue edited by Linda L. Berger (University of Nevada Las Vegas, USA), Bridget J. Crawford (Pace University, New York, USA), and Kathryn M. Stanchi (Temple University, Philadelphia, USA).

Table of Contents

Introduction

Feminist Judgments: Comparative Socio-Legal Perspectives on Judicial Decision Making and Gender Justice
Linda L. Berger, Bridget J. Crawford, Kathryn M. Stanchi

 

Part I: Methods in the Feminist Judgments Projects

Collaboration as Feminist Methodology: Experiences from the Feminist International Judgments Project
Loveday Hodson

Accessing Court Files as a Feminist Endeavour: Reflections on ‘Feminist Judgments of Aotearoa - Te Rino: A Two-Stranded Rope’
Elisabeth McDonald, Paulette Benton-Greig

Women’s Court of Canada Act and Rules
Melina Buckley

 

Part II: Measuring the Impact of Feminist Judgments

Feminist Judging in the 'Real World'
Rosemary Hunter

Turning Feminist Judgments into Jurisprudence: The Women’s Court of Canada on Substantive Equality
Denise Réaume

Impact of the Feminist Judgment Writing Projects: The Case of the Women’s Court of Canada
Jennifer Koshan

 

Part III: The Reach of Feminist Judgments

‘Benchmarking’ a Supreme Court and Federal Court judge in Australia
Francesca Bartlett, Heather Douglas

The Scottish Feminist Judgments Project: A New Frontier
Sharon Cowan