Injunctive relief and appellate courts: The United States Supreme Court, the British House of Lords, and appellate court policymaking in comparative perspective

Federal courts in the United States increasingly use equitable remedies to adjudicate and remedy difficult public law problems. Equity allows courts to balance the interests of plaintiff and defendant, and create workable, effective remedies for complex legal problems. The most prominent equitable remedy to which judges resort is the injunction.;This dissertation focuses on appellate review of public law injunctions in the United States and Great Britain. It compares and contrasts how the United States Supreme Court and the British House of Lords and Court of Appeal review public law injunctions. Injunctions in public law cases concerning freedom of speech and press, labor law, and administrative law are compared and contrasted.;The purpose of this comparative exercise is to not only define the similarities and differences between appellate review of public law injunctions in the United States and Britain, but it serves a broader goal of adding to a growing trend in political science of studying courts comparatively, with a view toward developing cross-national theories of judicial policymaking.;Injunctive relief is not only significant in public law adjudication in the United States. It is also increasingly instanced in the British judicial process. Indeed, British and American judges use injunctions to remedy complex public law disputes concerning similar issues, for instance injunctions in freedom of speech and press cases, labor law cases concerning labor unions and the right to strike, and injunctions against administrative agencies.