The article compares the involvement of four regional economic courts in legal disputes mirroring constitutional, political and social crises at national or regional level. These four judicial bodies of the European Union, the Andean Community, the East African Community and the Central American Integration System have all faced varied forms of resistance to their involvement and their general authority. By comparing these four case studies from across the globe, the article identifies institutional and contextual factors that explain the uneven resistance. While the regional economic courts in Central America and East Africa were subject to backlash from the member states, their counterparts in Europe and Latin America avoided backlash but at the prize of achieving only a narrow authority.