Consensus guidelines for the use and interpretation of angiogenesis assays

The formation of new blood vessels, or angiogenesis, is a complex process that plays important roles in growth and development, tissue and organ regeneration, as well as numerous pathological conditions. Angiogenesis undergoes multiple discrete steps that can be individually evaluated and quantified by a large number of bioassays. These independent assessments hold advantages but also have limitations. This article describes in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro bioassays that are available for the evaluation of angiogenesis and highlights critical aspects that are relevant for their execution and proper interpretation. As such, this collaborative work is the first edition of consensus guidelines on angiogenesis bioassays to serve for current and future reference

When Judges Go Public: The Selective Promotion of Case Results on the Mexican Supreme Court

Recent theory in judicial politics suggests that a normative public commitment to a state’s high court can undermine political constraints on judging induced by the separation-of-powers system. If public support affects judicial authority in this way, judges ought to care about influencing the information to which citizens have access, especially when they substitute their preferences for those of elected officials by invalidating public policies. This study attempts to simultaneously explain the Mexican Supreme Court’s merits decisions in constitutional cases and its choices to issue press releases summarizing those decisions for members of the national media. Using original data on the Supreme Court’s constitutional resolutions, I find that the Court was significantly more likely to publicize decisions striking down public policies than those upholding them. I also find that that the Court was most likely to publicize resolutions striking down important federal policies, the policies the Court was least likely to invalidate

Lobbying for Judicial Reform: The Role of the Mexican Supreme Court in Institutional Selection

While the behavior of judges clearly affects the success of judicial reform efforts, it is not clear how judges might influence the selection of judicial institutions aimed at building healthier courts. In this paper, I suggest that judges might play an important role in defining the judicial reform agenda by both directly lobbying important policy makers and by going public. I develop these claims through a discussion of the Mexican Supreme Court’s recent efforts to induce further judicial reform. I consider the Court’s important successes and failures and discuss important constraints on the ability of judges to influence the reform process through lobbying

Can Courts be Bulwarks of Democracy?

Independent judges are thought to promote democratic regime survival by allowing perceived violations of rules limiting arbitrary power to be challenged non-violently in a fair setting, governed by transparent rules. Yet, judges are often subjected to public shaming and politically motivated removals. Courts are sometimes packed with partisan allies of the government, their jurisdiction is nearly always subject to political control and their decisions can be ignored. For all of these reasons, scholars have identied patterns of prudential decision-making that is sensitive to political interests even on the most well-respected courts in the world. If these forces all operate on judges, what, if any, are the conditions under which judges can be conceived of as defenders of democracy? How could judges subject to political pressures stabilize a democratic regime? This document summarizes a book that addresses these questions. We argue that despite these pressures judges can enhance regime stability by incentivizing prudence on behalf of elites, both those who control that state, i.e., leaders, and those on whose support leaders depend. Empirically, we leverage original data on judicial behavior, judicial institutions, and policy using a sample of all democratic political systems for over 100 years. We re-examine empirical claims of existing models of courts and democracy as well as original claims derived from our own work

Domestic Judicial Institutions and Human Rights Treaty Violation

Democratic and autocratic states routinely violate their international agreements protecting human rights. Scholars typically link ratification and compliance behavior theoretically but test their models separately; however, if the behaviors are jointly determined then we should treat them that way empirically. We consider how domestic judiciaries influence the joint choice to ratify and comply with international human rights regimes. Using data on the ratification status of states under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), states’ torture practices, and a series of measures of judicial effectiveness, we examine whether legal institutions are likely to constrain state behavior and by implication raise the costs of ratification