ABSTRACT
By some calculations, roughly 40 percent of the world’s population lives under a federal system of government. And as befits an organizing principle so expansive and important to people’s lives, much scholarly attention has been paid to federalism and federal polities from theory to design to operation. Far less thought is given to judicial federalism - a federal system’s judicial architecture and its operation, including its apex court or courts, lower courts under central control or autonomous courts in constituent units and the ways in which these many institutions connect or interact. Although often overlooked or given only cursory attention, judicial federalism is of critical importance to the functioning of a federal system. This chapter takes a capacious view of judicial federalism. It will first address the design and function of apex courts and then outline the complicated issues raised by the rest of the judicial system and the embedded challenges to judicial and political legitimacy.
