Decoding Judicial Cross-Citations: How Do European Judges Engage with Foreign Case Law?

This article investigates how European private law supreme courts engage with foreign case law through cross-citations, analyzing a sample of 456 judgments containing 940 citations across 28 countries from 2000 to 2018. It finds significant variation in judicial engagement: courts from common law countries tend to cite older foreign cases and engage more deeply with their reasoning, while many courts focus primarily on the results of foreign judgments without indicating legal similarity or agreement. Most cross-citations are motivated by comparative law reasons rather than EU, international, or jurisdictional law, with EU law-related citations particularly prevalent in intellectual property and conflict of laws. The study identifies a bifurcation not along common versus civil law lines but between courts from smaller jurisdictions—citing mainly one foreign court, older cases, and showing more interest in reasoning—and those from larger jurisdictions, which cite multiple courts and more recent cases. These findings contribute to understanding judicial dialogue, comparative reasoning, and the role of cross-citations in European legal integration.