This thesis examines the relationship between courts, administrators, and legislators. The goal is to improve the operation of judicial review in the United States and provide suggestions on how... Show moreThis thesis examines the relationship between courts, administrators, and legislators. The goal is to improve the operation of judicial review in the United States and provide suggestions on how to enhance emerging doctrines of judicial review in the EU. The thesis focuses on how courts, agencies, and legislators interact in order to make and interpret law. Legislators create laws. Administrators apply and interpret laws. Courts review administrators’ actions and interpretations. In so doing, they must give some ‘weight’ to the agency’s interpretation of the statute. This system produces principled outcomes only if there is ‘principled’ communication between legislators, courts, and administrators. This has become increasingly relevant in the United States (due to the proliferation of administrative acts) and in Europe, due to the move towards ‘Better Regulation’ in the EU. Thus, this thesis examines the nature of this ‘principled communication’ in order to help guide the appropriate relationship between courts and administrators. The over-arching research question is: How should courts and agencies interact in order to promote strong and effective law? Show less
he creation of European Union agencies is arguably one of the most prominent institutional innovations at the EU level in recent history. Especially since the early 1990s, the EU and its member... Show morehe creation of European Union agencies is arguably one of the most prominent institutional innovations at the EU level in recent history. Especially since the early 1990s, the EU and its member states delegated a wide range of (semi-)regulatory, monitoring, and coordination tasks to a quickly growing number of agencies. Most existing research focuses on the creation of these agencies. As a result, we do not know much about how agencies develop after their creation. EU agencies are formally independent, but do they also behave autonomously in practice? How does actual autonomy vary across EU agencies and how does this affect the role these agencies play in the multi-level system of European governance? This study addresses these questions theoretically and empirically by comparing six EU agencies – the European Medicines Agency (EMEA), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Environm ent Agency (EEA), the European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), Europol and Eurojust. It shows how some of these agencies develop into relatively autonomous entities by acquiring a distinct organisational character and by generating support from actors in their environment, whereas other agencies do so to a much lesser extent or not at all. Show less
