I·CONnect

–Julio Ponce, Professor of Administrative Law, University of Barcelona. Email: jponce@ub.edu

On December 20, 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court issued a historic ruling, putting an end to a series of lawsuits initiated in 2015 that have pitted Urgenda, a foundation with 886 Dutch people as plaintiffs, against the Dutch State.

In this judgment, the high court declared the existence of dangerous climate change to be a proven fact, affirmed the legal obligation of the Dutch State to protect the rights of its citizens with the due care and diligence of good government and good administration, and established the absence of absolute and unimpeded freedom of choice for the law in the exercise of existing discretion in climate change decision-making.

—Claudia Marchese, Research Fellow in Comparative Public Law at the University of Florence (Italy)

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Turkish Constitutional Court’s decision n. 2017/22355 dated 26 December 2019 on the violation of the applicants’ freedom of speech determined by the blocked access to Wikipedia, was published in the Official Gazette on January 15, 2020.
2. The Colombian Constitutional Court ordered the country’s ministry of justice, the Office of the Attorney General and health professionals to provide a justification for the criminalization of abortion in Colombia.
3. Thailand’s Constitutional Court ruled that key figures of the opposition Future Forward Party are not guilty of opposing the monarchy.
4. The Chilean Constitutional Tribunal stated the inadmissibility of filing a claim questioning the constitutionality of the National Institute for Human Rights’ legitimacy to lodge complaints against the crimes of torture.
5. The Italian Constitutional Court by means of a deliberation, dated 8 January 2020, admitted all non-profit social groups and all institutional bodies representing collective or diffuse interests relevant to the questions discussed to present brief written opinions, thus providing the Court with information that may be useful in understanding and evaluating the case before it.

In the News

1. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has submitted a package of numerous constitutional amendments to Parliament.
2. Lawyers of President Trump during the impeachment trial, tried to emphasize that the House of Representatives had never accused the President of committing an ordinary crime, so that the accuse of abuse of power could collapse.
3. The Iowa Senate Republicans launched a resolution to modify the Iowa Constitution establishing that it is not recognized or secured a right to abortion and it is not possible to use public funding for abortion.
4. The Commonwealth of Virginia voted on 15 January 2020 to amend the U.S. Constitution, so becoming the 38^th and final state needed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment which prohibits gender discrimination.
5. On 8 January 2020 the new Montenegro law on Religious Freedom came into force. This law led to tensions between Montenegro and Serbia.

New Scholarship

1. J. Chaisse, Sixty Years of European Integration and Global Power Shifts (forthcoming in 2020) (providing a critical analysis of the key features of the EU integration and how this integration is perceived).
2. D. Popovic, Comparative Government (2019) (comparative analysis of the contemporary systems of government).
3. K.R. Richards, J.V. Zeben (eds.), Policy Instruments in Environmental Law (forthcoming in 2020) (providing a comprehensive guide to environmental policy instruments).
4. J.M. Scherpe, C. Fenton Glynn, T. Kaan (eds.), Eastern and Western Perspectives on Surrogacy (2019) (analysing the approach of 21 different jurisdictions in Eastern and Western countries to surrogacy).
5. J.N. Stefanelli, Judicial Review of Immigration Detention in the UK, US and EU (2020) (examining judgements issued by the lower courts of two jurisdictions, the UK and the US, concerning detention of immigrants).

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. The Law and Rights section of the German Political Science association welcomes submissions for their next conference on “Autocratic Constitutionalism” to be held on 28-30 May 2020 at Free University Berlin. Abstracts of no more than 300 words must be submitted by 1 February 2020. 
2. The International Association of Constitutional Law welcomes proposals addressing “Constitutional Identity: Contemporary Issues and Challenges” for the roundtable that will be held in St. Petersburg (Russia) on 10-13 June 2020. Applicants are required to submit their CV and abstracts in English by  23 March 2020.
3. The Australian National University (ANU) College of Law will host a conference on 8and 9 December 2020 on “Public Law and Inequalities”. The deadline for abstracts is 2 March 2020.
4. Law, Technology and Humans, a new international peer-reviewed journal, invites submissions for its Volume 2, Issue 1. The deadline for submission of articles is 10 February 2020.
5. The University of Bristol Law School will host the 2020 British Association of Comparative Law (BACL) Postgraduate research workshop on Comparative Law on 23 and 24 April 2020. Doctoral students interested in participating should submit an abstract by 14 February 2020.
6. The IUCN Academy of Environmental Law together with the Tilburg Sustainability Centre will host a workshop in Tilburg University on 10 September 2020 entitled “Enhancing Urban Climate Resilience: the role of law”. Everyone interested can submit an abstract by 2 March 2020.
7. Forced Migration Review Issue 64 – to be published in June 2020 – will include a feature on human trafficking and smuggling. The deadline for submission of articles is 17 February 2020.

Elsewhere Online

1. D.R. Cameron, Spanish Supreme Court challenges European Court of Justice over Junqueras immunity, Yale MacMillan Centre
2. R. Bauböck, Cities vs. States: should urban citizenship be emancipated from nationality?, Verfassungsblog
3. C. Tecimer, Why the Turkish Constitutional Court’s Wikipedia Decision is no reason to celebrate, Verfassungsblog
4. J.S. Caird, The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill and the Rule of Law, UKCLA
5. A. Sinclair, J. Tomlinson, Brexit delegated legislation: problematic results, UKCLA
6. J. Borneman, Threats to public security in EU immigration law: finding the right discretion, EULawBlog
7. M. Reuchamps, Belgium’s experiment in permanent forms of deliberative democracy, ConstitutionNet
8. A. Slavov, Bulgaria’s Balancing Act: Judicial and Prosecutorial Independence and Accountability, ConstitutionNet

ICON·S | The International Society for Public Law is pleased to open the Call for Nominations for its third annual Book Prize. In line with the Society’s mission, the prize will be awarded to an outstanding book in the field of public law, understood as a field of knowledge that transcends dichotomies between the national and the international as well as between administrative and constitutional Law. Preference will be given to scholarship which, in dealing with the challenges of public life and governance, combines elements from all of the above with a good dose of political theory and social science.

The Book Prize will be awarded at the Society’s next Annual Conference on July 9-11, 2020 in Wrocław, Poland, to the author(s) of a book or books published in the two calendar years prior to the conference (2018 and 2019). The winner will be selected by the Society’s Book Award Committee, chaired in 2020 by Anne Peters.

Eligibility Criteria

Monographs on public law as defined above written in any language are eligible for nomination. Only books published up to two years prior to the year of the annual meeting are eligible for nomination. The relevant criterion is the official publication year as stated in the book’s front-matter. Repeated nominations in consecutive years are not permitted. Books nominated for the 2018 and 2019 Book Prize are not eligible. Nominated books must moreover be the first original edition.

Nomination Procedure

Members of the Society’s Executive Committee and Council, groups of at least three ICON-S members, book review editors of academic journals, as well as scholarly publishers are invited to nominate books, up to a maximum of 5 (five) each. The Book Prize Committee is authorized to consider books that have not been nominated and that it considers particularly worthy of consideration. Please note that authors are not eligible to nominate their own books. Please note also that edited books are not eligible for consideration. The Society especially welcomes nominations of scholarly works by female- and male-identifying scholars.

Nominations may be made via e-mail to bookprize@icon-society.org with the following subject line: Book Prize ATTN: Chair of the Book Prize Committee. Nominations must include a justification of 400-500 words explaining the basis for the nomination.

The deadline for the submission of nominations is January 31, 2020.

Please note that the nominators must send (or make arrangements with the publisher to send) one hardcopy for each member of the Book Prize Committee no later than February 29, 2020 directly to each of the members of the committee. Addresses will be provided after nomination. E-Books or scans can substitute hardcopies with the approval of the Chair. Failure to deliver the required number of hardcopies or substitutes will lead to non-consideration of the proposal.

The Call for Nominations for the ICON·S Book Prize can be downloaded here (PDF).

—Chiara Graziani, Ph.D. Candidate and Research Fellow in Constitutional Law, University of Genoa (Italy)

In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in public law. “Developments” may include a selection of links to news, high court decisions, new or recent scholarly books and articles, and blog posts from around the public law blogosphere.

To submit relevant developments for our weekly feature on “What’s New in Public Law,” please email contact.iconnect@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Italian Constitutional Court rejected a request by the League party to partially repeal the electoral law, changing the voting system into a first-past-the-post.
2. The German Federal Constitutional Court held that completely excluding non-marital families from stepchild adoption is unconstitutional.  
3. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the United Kingdom did not breach Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights by holding a trial behind closed doors for national security reasons.
4. The German Federal Constitutional Court held a hearing on surveillance law.
5. The Slovenian Constitutional Court will decide whether or not a law requiring the Slovenian central bank to cover any loss to investors arising from the 2013 rescue of Slovenian banks breaches the Slovenian Constitution.
6. The Supreme Court of Canada rejected a bid by British Columbia to regulate oil pipeline.
7. The US Supreme Court refused to hear Sudan’s request to limit damages over the embassy’s bombing in 1998.

In the News

1. The US Senate formally opened the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
2. The Court of Appeal of Turin (Italy) ruled that there is a causal link between the use of mobile phones and head cancer.
3. The European Commission asked the European Court of Justice to suspend the functioning of the Polish Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Chamber.
4. The Russian Parliament approved President Vladimir Putin’s nomination for a new Prime Minister.
5. The German defence minister said that the European Union should offer the United Kingdom “privileged third-party status” in defence and foreign policy cooperation after Brexit.
6. The US and China signed a preliminary trade agreement on tariffs.

New Scholarship

1. Francesco Biagi, European Constitutional Courts and Transitions to Democracy (2020) (examining the role of three generations of European constitutional courts in the transitions to democracy that took place in Europe in the twentieth century).
2. Jacco Bomhoff, The Double-Facing Constitution (2020) (exploring some of the many ways in which constitutional orders engage with, and are shaped by, their exteriors)
3. Pau Bossacoma Busquets, Morality and Legality of Secession (2020) (exploring explores secession from three different perspectives: political philosophy, international law and constitutional law)
4. Jody Heymann, Aleta Sprague, Amy Raub, Advancing Equality: How Constitutional Rights Can Make e Difference Worldwide (2020) (comparing the constitutions of 193 UN member states to assess which protect equal rights for its citizens irrespective of their differences, including gender, sexual orientation, income, and disability)
5. Son Ngoc Bui, Politics of Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments: The Case of Thailand (2020) (arguing that the question constitutional unamendability is a part of constitutional politics, exemplified by Thailand’s Constitutional Court Decision No. 15–18/2556, which struck down a proposal for a constitutional amendment calling for direct senatorial elections)
6. Christophe Paulussen, Martin Scheinin (eds.), Human Dignity and Human Security in Times of Terrorism (2020) (collecting essays from several scholars examining how human dignity and human security can be secured and how law can constitute a source of trust at a time when Europe and the rest of the world continue to be plagued by terrorism)
7. Vijayashri Sripati, Constitution-Making under UN Auspices (2020) (examining the role of the United Nations and of its predecessor, the League of Nations, in giving constitutional assistance to states drafting their constitutions)
8. Timothy Zick, The First Amendment in the Trump Era (2020) (connecting present concerns related to the First Amendment to episodes that took place throughout the history of the US)

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. The University of Salzburg is seeking two post-docs in Comparative Constitutional Law and Political Sciences. Submissions are open until January 29, 2020.
2. The IACL research group on freedom of speech invites submissions for the conference “Free Speech in the 21^st Century,” to be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on July 3-4, 2020. Submissions are accepted until January 31, 2020.
3. The European Central Bank is looking for established scholars or promising early-career researchers for up to six legal research scholarships to be awarded in 2020. The deadline for applications is February 3, 2020.
4. The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology will host a conference on “The Roles of Technology Expertise in Law and Policy,” on February 27-28, 2020.
5. Columbia Law School invites submissions for the 2020 work-in-progress Workshop on Comparative Constitutional Law. Abstracts must be submitted no later than March 1, 2020.
6. The International Society of Public Law (ICON-S) invites submissions for its 2020 Annual Conference, to be held in Wroclaw, Poland, on July 9-11, 2020. The deadline is March 1, 2020.

Elsewhere Online

1. Mark Geddes, Dramas at Westminster: Select Committees and the Quest for Accountability, Constitution Unit Blog
2. Ignasi Guardans, The Case of Mr. Junqueras is a Case of Respect of the Rule of Law, Verfassungsblog
3. Niel Kirst, Gun Control in the EU: the CJEU’s Decision on the Legality of the Revised European Firearms Directive, EU Law Analysis  
4. Christopher Kuner, International data transfers, standard contractual clauses, and the Privacy Shield: the AG Opinion in Schrems II, EU Law Blog
5. Sándor Lénárd, The role of popular movements and charismatic leaders in American constitutionalism – conversation with Professor Bruce Ackerman, Mandiner
6. Hans-Martien ten Napel, A Natural Law Basis for Human Rights?, Canopy Forum
7. Jack Simson Caird, The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill and the Rule of Law, UKCLA Blog
8. Benjamin Wittes, Thoughts on the Horowitz Report, Part III: The FISA Findings, Lawfare

–The Editors

Many of our readers are happily planning to attend the 2020 Annual Conference of the International Society of Public Law, to be held at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 9-11, 2020.

For those attendees who wish to propose a fully-formed panel but are unable readily to identify others who are working on similar research questions, we suggest try to find each other on Twitter by tweeting @ICON___S and using the conference hashtag #iconswroclaw.

Attendees on Twitter may then monitor this hashtag and help one-another find scholars in similar research fields.

We wish all attendees well, and we look forward to seeing you in July!

–Susan Achury, Miami University

In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in public law. “Developments” may include a selection of links to news, high court decisions, new or recent scholarly books and articles, and blog posts from around the public law blogosphere.

To submit relevant developments for our weekly feature on “What’s New in Public Law,” please email contact.iconnect@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Turkish Constitutional Court ruled protecting journalist rights from the penalization of criticism against politics.  
2. The Canadian Supreme Court sets a revised framework for judicial review of administrative decisions in an immigration case, Vavilov.
3. Members of the US Congress urged the Supreme Court Thursday to reconsider, if not overrule, the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide.
4. Colombia’s Constitutional Court recognized victims of sexual violence within ranks of the FARC.
5. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit released $3.6 billion for the border wall.
6. The Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal recognized that freedom of expression protects workers from complaining about the company.
7. The President of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) warned Poland over the overhaul of the judiciary.
8. The Spanish Supreme Court prevents convicted Catalan independence leader from taking a seat in EU parliament

In the News

1. Colombia’s former Constitutional Court president sentenced to prison over corruption.
2. In Peru, a prosecutor asked for 12 years in jail for Kenji Fujimori in case of alleged vote purchase.
3. Chile’s President signed off on a referendum to be held on a new constitution.
4. The Peruvian Constitutional Tribunal published a proposal to reject lawsuit against the dissolution of Congress.
5. Venezuela has two presidents: Maduro and Guaidó.
6. US House of Representatives voted to limit further military actions against Iran.
7. UK House of Commons passed Brexit deal.
8. Singapore’s opposition party made the first legal challenge to fake news law.

New Scholarship

1. Maartje De Visser, Non-Judicial Constitutional Interpretation: The Netherlands (forthcoming in 2020) (showing how executive and non-partisan bodies exercise their responsibility for evaluating the constitutionality of legislation). 
2. Yonatan Fessha and Karl Kössler, Federalism and the Courts in Africa Design and Impact in Comparative Perspective (forthcoming in 2020)(examining the design and impact of courts in African federal systems from a comparative perspective)
3. Francesco Biagi, European Constitutional Courts and Transitions to Democracy, Analisi e Diritto (2020) (examining the role of three generations of European constitutional courts in the transitions to democracy that took place in Europe in the twentieth century)
4. Samuel R. Bagenstos, Disability and Reproductive Justice, Harvard Law & Policy Review, Vol. 14, 2020, Forthcoming) (examining the legal and societal treatment of fetuses and children with disabilities alongside the legal and societal treatment of parents with disabilities)
5. Jason NE Varuhas and Shona Wilson Stark (eds.), The Frontiers of Public Law, Hart Publishing (2020) (exploring the frontiers of public law and examining cutting-edge issues at the intersection of public law and international law, indigenous peoples, criminal law and private law and public administration)
6. Aslan, Volkan, Executive Decree Authority in Turkey Before the Constitutional Amendments of 2017: In Light of the Turkish Constitutional Court’s Retreat (2019) (examining the effects of the recent inflation of executive dominance on the Court’s ability to review emergency decrees)
7. Ernst Hirsch Ballin, Gerhard van der Schyff and Maarten Stremler (eds.), Judicial Power – Safeguards and Limits in a Democratic Society in European Yearbook of Constitutional Law (2019) (examining the judicial function as a source of power in the contemporary constitutional context)
8. Matthew Groves, Janina Boughey and Dan Meagher (eds.),  The Legal Protection of Rights in Australia (2019) (showing how influences of a common law heritage, a written constitution, statutory and common law innovations and a strong dose of comparative legal influences have led to the unique patchwork of rights protection in Australia)
9. Miroslaw Granat and Katarzyna Granat (eds.), The Constitution of Poland: A Contextual Analysis (2019) (examining the institutional choices made in the Polish Constitution 1997, as well as the radical changes, in particular within the judicial branch, introduced by the new governing majority since 2015)

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. Columbia Law School welcomes submissions for the Fall 2020 Works-in-Progress Workshop: Comparative Constitutional Law in the Global South in New York on October 2^nd, 2020.
2. The Forum for Law and Social Science at the University of Oslo will host the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies–Europe will host 2020 Empirical Legal Studies and has issued a call for paper for the conference on June 11-12, 2020.
3. The National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Kyiv, Ukraine) has just issued a call for submissions for Law and Politics Journal  6/2020 issue.
4. The Central Summer University In cooperation with International IDEA, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the African Network of Constitutional Lawyers is offering a course on Constitution Building in Africa in Budapest-Hungary (June 29-July 8 2020).
5. The Elon Law Review issues a call for papers for the 2020 Symposium – Access to the Ballot on the Eve of the 2020 Election: What Barriers Still Exist? The deadline for abstracts is Feb. 28, 2020.

Elsewhere Online

1. Adem K Abebe, In the World of Constitution Building in 2019 and 2020 Prospects, ConstitutionNet
2. Lisa Hilbink and Valentina Salas, Path to a New Constitution in Chile: How the Unthinkable Became the Inescapable, ConstitutionNet
3. Scott B. MacDonald, Bolsonaro’s first year: Balancing the economy and cultural wars, Global Americans
4. Tobias Franz and Andrei Gomez, Why is Colombia striking for change?, LSE blog
5. Scott Hofer and Jason Casellas, Donald Trump has criticized Latino judges, but they are some of the most conservative jurists on the federal bench, LSE blog
6. Andrei Dragan, The Conseil Constitutionnel’s decision on the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages – flawed, yet inevitable?, William & Mary Law School’s International and Comparative Law Blog
7. Pawel Marcisz, Discipline and Punish: New Polish Reforms of the Judiciary, Verfassungsblog