Analyzing Criminal and other Civil Rights Cases Separately

Epp’s ‘Rights Revolution ’ theory provides a compelling appraisal of the rise of rights protection in national policy making. He argues that the expansion of rights litigation in the agendas of high courts in four countries-the U.S., England, Canada and India-, results chiefly from the existence of a support structure in society to bring the cases to court, to finance the costs of litigation, and to encourage popular support for an expansion of rights. This paper’s intention is to offer a preliminary first attempt to extend Epp’s analysis and build on his findings. We suggest a more detailed look at the measurements of rights revolutions that takes into account the context in which rights protection takes place, hoping to contribute to a more detailed, cross national analysis of the role of courts in protecting individual rights. In particular, we propose to test the theory that the development of a sophisticated support structure leads to an increased protection of both criminal and other civil rights and liberties by the courts. The preliminary results discussed in this paper show that one’s conclusions about the existence and extent of a rights revolution in these countries can be sensitive to slight data and methodological issues