Abby Matthews

Abstract Recent scholarship in international relations has shown that nonstate actors’ access to international institutions has expanded, including for victims of human rights abuse. Yet, although children are protected by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and are considered ideal victims, they face significant barriers to justice. In 2011, children gained direct access to submit petitions to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Who are these children, and what do they petition about? We introduce novel data on children’s petitions, including country targets, topics, ages, legal representation, and decisions. We find that migration is a dominant topic of petitions and that young children are unlikely to be the authors of petitions. In contrast to scholarship for other treaty bodies, we also find that children are overwhelmingly accompanied by lawyers and family members in the Committee on the Rights of the Child. This article centers children themselves as active participants in international governance and provides meaningful insights into both academic and policy debates over children’s agency and nonstate access to international institutions.

Interested in access to justice, children's rights, or IR? Check out @andreavilan.bsky.social & @rjschoner.bsky.social's fantastic new work in the Journal of Human Rights "Children’s participation in international organizations: Individual petitions in the United Nations."🔥🔥
doi.org/10.1080/1475...

Relevantly, @elizabethlane.bsky.social and I have a JOP coming out on this very topic, where we examine 34 years of citation data to address attorney targeting of justices. TLDR: yes, they do it and yes, it works.

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Trump on his multiple suits against the federal government: "I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself ... We could make it a substantial amount, nobody would care, because it's gonna go to numerous, very good charities."

We see you with that SCOTUS pack on the interim/shadow docket, @tdunc17.bsky.social!

Law and Courts Women's Writing Group Writing groups for the Spring 2026 semester

Spring Law and Courts Women's Writing Groups are a go!

Link to sign up is below, due date for signing up is 1/30. Come join us! Good work across the law and courts subfield gets done here!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

One basic pattern here is that DHS officials are engaging in violence simply because they are irritated at citizens protesting them. There is no plausible threat of violence here. He just wants to inflict pain, and believes there will be no penalty for doing so.

Something fun and lighthearted to talk about around the Thanksgiving table tomorrow: are SCOTUS justices racist?

Here's @lizmaltby.bsky.social and my perspective:

How Supreme Court justices use racial stereotypes when deciding cases | USAPP Conservative justices are consistently less likely than liberals to side with criminal defendants, and that gap grows wider for defendants of color.

Supreme Court justices use racial stereotypes when deciding cases find Elizabeth Maltby of @unlv.edu and @abbymatthews.bsky.social of @sunyofficial.bsky.social

blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/20...

IMPORTANT EXTENSION!

The SPSA Neal Tate Best Paper Committee is extending the deadline to Nov 3, 5:00 pm EST.

The 2026 Neal Award is given to the author(s) of the Best Paper on Judicial Politics presented at the 2025 SPSA Annual Meeting.

Email papers to spsa.finance@spsa.net.

“Making Sense of the Federal Forces on the Streets,” with photos of how they’re uniformed and equipped

The New York Times publishes a handy guide to which federal forces are terrorizing us at any moment. This is America, 2025.

A Washington State Supreme Court Justice Condemns Federal Indian Law as Racist and Awful "Each time a court cites a case that has as its foundation such racist fallacies, it is incumbent on us to call out that racism, even if just in a footnote."

wrote about last week's super interesting tribal sovereignty decision in Washington Supreme Court

one justice wrote a standalone concurrence basically saying 'the court applied the law correctly, but also the law is terrible and it's our responsibility to say so'
ballsandstrikes.org/legal-cultur...

Judge William Young's ruling against Rubio and Noem is a lesson for all in the Trump era Young lays bare the unconstitutionality of the Trump administration's student deportation efforts — and issues a challenge to America. Also: More court pushback.

NEW: Judge William Young's ruling against Rubio and Noem is a lesson for all in the Trump era.

Young lays bare the unconstitutionality of the Trump administration's student deportation efforts — and issues a challenge to America.

Today, at Law Dork:

Some quick takeaways:
Median # of pubs for tenure in 1980s: 7
2010s: 10
2020s (so far): 12 more coauthors+broader outlets

We map publication trends, coauthorship, institutional divides & gendered patterns.

This is important for Law & Courts scholars but also relevant for all political scientists

Publish or perish…but what exactly does it take to earn tenure in Law & Courts? 📈👩🏽‍⚖️ Our new article tracks 40+ years of tenure portfolios—spoiler: expectations are rising, collaborations are up, but inequities remain. 👇
@alyxmark.bsky.social @melineberger.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/jlc....

We're back, y'all!

Hitting that #TenureTrackHustle hard, but finding time to support our fellow #JudicialWomen nonetheless!

LET'S GO!!!!!!!!!

(PS - follow @lawcourtsapsa.bsky.social for all your official APSA Law and Courts content)

(PPS - We are not judges, please don't tag us to yell at them!)

I know it may be shocking, but what if some of the Supreme Court justices were racist? Our findings show that litigant race, crime type, and justice ideology jointly shape judicial votes.
Out now at JREP with Liz Maltby. cup.org/46JFvjZ
#polisky #LawSky

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

@abbymatthews.bsky.social & Rachael Hinkle's analysis of judicial citations demonstrates that diversity in race, gender, *and* partisanship plays a critical role in the evolution of legal doctrine, with judges sharing all 3 salient traits experiencing a 25% increase in citation probability.

The Rule of Law Is Dead in the US The rule of law presupposes that there are rules that provide a consistent, repeatable, and knowable set of outcomes. That’s no longer the case.

This will have to count as my Supreme Court term review.

I make that point that there's no point in reviewing what the Supreme Court has done because the rule of law is dead in this country anyway.

My latest in @thenation.com

Melissa Hortman, who was assassinated last night, was the Speaker of the Minnesota House in the 2023-2024 session, when Democrats ran the state government.

That means she had a leading role in shepherding the many landmark reforms that Dems adopted in that period—an important legacy. Brief 🧵.

Thinking about devastating cuts to NSF: US gov-funded science has been the engine upon which most of the tech wealth was generated. But the oligarchs (currently hoarding much of that $) think it’s their own brilliance & not the accident of standing close to the scientific engine that made them rich.

Does a litigant’s race or gender influence public support for Supreme Court decisions?

Read more: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

#JOP #SupremeCourt #PublicOpinion #PoliticalPerceptions

Authors:
@jamilscott.bsky.social
@elizabethlane.bsky.social
@jessicaann87.bsky.social

Weaponizing Student Evaluations (Part III) - Above the Law LawProfBlawg offers some ways to fix student evaluations.

It's student evaluations time.

As we ponder them, let's ponder how to fix them.

abovethelaw.com/2018/10/weap...

Michigan has a new Supreme Court Justice, as of today.

Governor Whitmer appointed Noah Hood, a lower court judge, to the seat of a retiring Republican justice.

This means Democratic or Democratic-nominated justices now have a majority of 6-1 on this court.

Brief thread:

Congratulations!! 🥳

I am always proud of my former graduate students. Today, @rachaelhouston.bsky.social just published this excellent commentary on the @lseusablog.bsky.social. Nice job my friend! @umnpolisci.bsky.social @judicialwomen.bsky.social @apsa.bsky.social

Friendly reminder that it’s award season! Nominations for Law and Courts section awards are due 3/1! 🏆

Nominate yourself! Nominate good work! Nominate good people!

In the famous words of Michael Scott via Wayne Gretzky - "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." Take the shot!

So excited for you and the dept, congratulations!!

Abstract states: What factors explain compliance with monetary damages awarded by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR)? States comply with the payment of monetary damages at higher rates than other forms of reparation. However, the higher compliance rate belies the significant variation in time to compliance with the payment of monetary awards. We identify three case-level characteristics that explain this variation: size of awards, number of victims, and victim identity. We test our hypotheses utilizing original datasets on compliance with monetary damages and case characteristics in IACtHR judgments through 2019, and find support for all three factors on time to compliance.

🚨New paper alert from Francesca Parente: "The Price of Justice: Compliance and Damages Awarded by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights," in Journal of Law & Courts doi.org/10.1017/jlc.... We saw this in writing group and it's 🔥. #ReadItCiteItSyllabusIt #polisky