Month: June 2012
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Call for Papers–Annual Meeting of the American Society of Comparative Law
The Younger Comparativists Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law is pleased to invite submissions to fill a panel on “New Perspectives in Comparative Law,” to be held at the Society’s 2012 Annual Meeting in Iowa City, Iowa, on October 4-6 at the University of Iowa College of Law.
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Dangerous Proposals for Amending Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan
[Initially published in The Japan Times, June 6, 2012 and reproduced with permission] The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) published its new draft constitutional amendment proposal in late April. The draft reflects a number of significant changes above and beyond those advanced in the proposal unveiled by the LDP in 2005.
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Azerbaijani Conscription – Update
In the Spring of last year I wrote a piece for this forum exploring a constitutionally dubious Azerbaijani mechanism requiring universal military service for young men on the one hand (punishable by imprisonment), while at the same time maintaining a legally unenforceable constitutional “right for alternative service” on the other – as a cover providing international legitimacy.
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North Korea’s constitutional innovations
One doesn’t usually think of totalitarian dictatorships as constitutional innovators. But North Korea has just amended its constitution for the second time in two years, changing the preamble to indicate that Kim Jong Il had “transferred the country into an undefeated country with strong political ideology, a nuclear power state and invincible military power.”