A substantial body of scholarly research has examined decision-making in domestic high courts, but international judicial behavior remains relatively poorly understood. Building on research that uses judges’ career background as a proxy for their motivations at the European Court of Human Rights, we deploy a new measure of judicial career backgrounds and a new dataset of the Court’s free expression decisions. We combine quantitative analysis of judicial votes with qualitative analysis of judges’ signed dissenting opinions to advance existing understandings of the Court’s decision-making. We show that former diplomats are less likely to support contested free expression claims than their colleagues with different career backgrounds. In their published opinions, former diplomats are more likely to voice concerns about the objectionable nature of particular speech acts and to call for broad judicial deference to state restrictions on such speech. By contrast, judges with prior service in domestic government roles, as well as judges with career backgrounds outside of government, exhibit greater tolerance of objectionable speech, greater willingness to impose European-wide standards, and more frequent invocation of extra-European legal standards. Our findings contribute to broader debates about the influence of individual-level preferences on judicial behavior in international courts.

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身着长袍的外交官：欧洲人权法院的司法职业道路和言论自由决策

大量的学术研究考察了国内高等法院的决策，但对国际司法行为的了解仍然相对较少。基于在欧洲人权法院使用法官职业背景作为其动机的代理的研究，我们部署了一种新的司法职业背景衡量标准和法院自由表达决定的新数据集。我们将司法投票的定量分析与法官签署的反对意见的定性分析相结合，以推进对法院决策的现有理解。我们表明，与具有不同职业背景的同事相比，前外交官不太可能支持有争议的言论自由主张。在他们发表的意见中，前外交官更有可能对特定言论行为的令人反感的性质表示担忧，并呼吁广泛的司法尊重国家对此类言论的限制。相比之下，曾在国内政府职位任职的法官以及具有政府以外职业背景的法官对令人反感的言论表现出更大的容忍度，更愿意实施欧洲范围的标准，并且更频繁地援引欧洲以外的法律标准。我们的研究结果有助于更广泛地讨论个人层面的偏好对国际法院司法行为的影响。以及具有政府以外职业背景的法官，对令人反感的言论表现出更大的容忍度，更愿意强加欧洲范围的标准，以及更频繁地援引欧洲以外的法律标准。我们的研究结果有助于更广泛地讨论个人层面的偏好对国际法院司法行为的影响。以及具有政府以外职业背景的法官，对令人反感的言论表现出更大的容忍度，更愿意强加欧洲范围的标准，以及更频繁地援引欧洲以外的法律标准。我们的研究结果有助于更广泛地讨论个人层面的偏好对国际法院司法行为的影响。