Empirical Legal Studies

ELS & International Law

While empirical work on international law issues has lagged compared empirical work in other areas, partly owing to a paucity of helpful data, change is afoot. In The Empirical Turn in International Legal Scholarship, Gregory Shaffer (Minn.) and Tom Ginsburg (Chicago), make the case, describe the recent "turn," and explore the emerging scholarly opportunities. The abstract follows:

"This article presents and assesses a new wave of empirical research on international law. Recent scholarship has moved away from theoretical debates over whether international law 'matters,' and focuses instead on exploring the conditions under which international law is created and produces effects. As this empirical research program has matured, it has allowed for new, mid-level theorizing that we call 'conditional international law theory.'"

American Bar Foundation (ABF) Call for Visiting Scholars

The American Bar Foundation (ABF)  invites scholars to join our intellectual community for the 2012-2013 academic year.

The ABF encourages national and international scholars on leave or sabbatical to take advantage of our diverse community and excellent facilities.  We offer an office, telephone, and computer, but no stipend.

Preference will be given to visitors whose scholarship coincides with the research agenda of the ABF and who will be in residence full-time for all or part of the year.  Summer visits are possible. Visitors are expected to participate in the intellectual life of the ABF, including a weekly seminar.

If you have an interest in this opportunity, please send an email to Robert Nelson at [email protected], subject line: Visiting Scholars Program, which states (1) the topic on which you are working, (2) the preferred dates for residence, (3) the days each week you would expect to be at the ABF, and (4) attach a CV.  Applications should be received by April 1, 2012.  Applications will be considered as space allows.  The ABF Appointments Committee will review applications and prospective visitors will be notified accordingly.

Data & Pedagogy: Civil Procedure

Over at Concurring Opinions, Dave Hoffman's (Temple) fascinating post features a simple graphic that speaks, quite literally, for itself and potentially implies a lot for how first year civil procedure is traditionally structured and presented. Well worth a look.

Causal Inference, Research Design & Empirical Legal Studies

Insofar as I regard Prof. Underhill Moore as the (under-appreciated) intellectual "father" of the modern empirical legal studies movement (full disclosure: a small framed photograph of Moore adorns my office wall), I remain partial to those who recognize Moore's scholarly contributions. Among those includes Profs. Dan Ho (Stanford) and Donald Rubin (Harvard--Statistics) whose paper, Credible Causal Inference for Empirical Legal Studies, leverages Moore's famous New Haven Church Street Parking study.

Recognizing that "causal inference has always been central to the enterprise of empirical legal studies," Ho and Rubin's paper, which should interest many, reviews "modern developments in the statistics of causal inference, focusing in particular on matching methods and regression discontinuity. What unifies such approaches is the prioritization of research design to create--without reference to any data on outcomes--subsets of comparable units. In what might be considered a vindication (or even 'kindred soul') of Moore, modern approaches emphasize design over methods of analysis."

The Costa Concordia Disaster & ELS

Though I posted on this paper last year, the unfolding tragedy involving the Costa Concordia reminded me anew of the paper's spectacular research design and execution. To refresh, in in Behavior Under Extreme Conditions: The Titanic Disaster, the authors exploit archival data and a quasi-natural experiment provided by the Titanic and Lusitania's tragic sinkings to test theories about how people behave in extreme situations.

The Titanic carried only 20 lifeboats, which could accommodate about half the people aboard, and deck officers exacerbated the shortage by launching lifeboats that were partially empty. It took the Titanic over 3 hours to sink, and failure to secure a seat in a lifeboat virtually guaranteed death. In contrast, the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 took only 18 minutes from when the torpedo hit the ship. The paper compares individual-level data on the passengers and crew on from both ships which sheds helpful light on some specific questions: "Did physical strength (being male and in prime age) or social status (being a first- or second-class passenger) raise the survival chance? Was it favorable for survival to travel alone or in company? Does one's role or function (being a crew member or a passenger) affect the probability of survival? Do social norms, such as "Women and children first!" have any effect? Does nationality affect the chance of survival?"