The way we do things back home: Do expatriate judges preferentially cite the jurisprudence of their home countries?

Abstract

It is common for judges of Australian, New Zealand, and British nationality to serve on the courts of the small Pacific States of the Commonwealth. This Article reports on a quantitative study that analysed whether expatriate judges in such States were more likely to cite jurisprudence from the jurisdiction of the judge's nationality. After using the data to conclude that expatriate judges do preferentially cite the jurisprudence of their home countries, it is concluded that such trends may be interpreted in multiple ways, some of which could be problematic for the citizens of the States that employ expatriate judges.