Piotr Bystranowski (Interdisciplinary Centre for Ethics; Jagiellonian University; Max-Planck-Institut für Verhaltenökonomik), Ivar Hannikainen (Department of Philosophy I, University of Granada), Guilherme Almeida (Insper), & Kevin Tobia (Georgetown University Law Center) have posted Statutory Interpretation’s Empirical Turn: Empirical Contributions to Cases, Doctrine, and Theory (The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Statutory Interpretation in the Common Law World) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Abstract: In American statutory interpretation, the current textualist paradigm centers the empirical question of what statutory text communicates to an ordinary reader. Scholars and judges meet judicial textualism with a growing use of empirical methods, looking to corpus linguistics, surveys, and even “AI” to inform how ordinary readers understand terms relevant to cases. Others have used empirical methods with broader aims, to address doctrinal questions like whether “linguistic canons” of interpretation reflect ordinary meaning. Finally, some have focused most broadly on philosophical questions like whether text or purpose are fundamental in the interpretation of (legal) rules. We introduce examples of these projects and defend the turn to empirical methods to advance knowledge about interpretation. We focus on American statutory interpretation but conclude by discussing recent cross-cultural studies and implications of the study of legal interpretation in a comparative context.
Highly recommended.