I·CONnect

—Sandeep Suresh, Faculty Member, Jindal Global Law School

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 Constitutional Court of Germany upheld the constitutional validity of provisions regulating the 2011 population census which were challenged by city states of Hamburg and Berlin.
2. The Constitutional Court of Columbia upheld the legality of bullfighting and thus dashed the hopes of animal rights activists.
3. The Constitutional Court of South Africa legalized the private use of marijuana.
4. The Constitutional Court of Turkey held that taking up prostitution as a profession is against human dignity in a case where a woman had challenged a brothel’s decision not to admit her.
5. The Constitutional Court of Romania gave approval to conduct a referendum that may render same-sex marriages illegal by redefining ‘family’ under the Constitution.

In the News

1. The President of India gave assent to an ordinance criminalizing triple talaq with a maximum punishment of three years.
2. A district court in Dallas, Texas directed the county to reform bail system which violates constitutional rights by imposing pre-set bail bond amounts without considering the financial capacity of each inmate.
3. Hungary refused to withdraw its controversial anti-migration law despite the infringement procedures initiated by the European Commission.
4. Justice Ranjan Gogoi has been appointed as India’s next Chief Justice and will assume the role on October 3, 2018.
5. The President of Ireland officially repealed the 8th constitutional amendment that had banned abortions following the referendum vote in May 2018.

New Scholarship

1. Cedric Jenart, The Binding Nature and Enforceability of Hybrid Global Administrative Bodies’ Norms Within the National Legal Order: The Case Study of WADA, 24 (3) European Public Law (2018) (explaining different methods through which soft law norms can be made binding within nation states after they are drafted by hybrid global administrative bodies).
2. Jorge Contesse, Resisting the Inter-American Human Rights System, Yale Journal of International Law (Forthcoming 2018) (examining instances of resistance towards inter-American human rights law and proposing a revision of methods of compliance with human rights law).
3. Nausica Palazzo, The Free Movement of Same-sex Spouses in the European Union: What Comes Next?, Michigan Journal of International  Law Online (2018) (analyzing the impact of the Court of Justice of the European Union’s recent decision on the free movement of a same-sex couples in the Union).
4. Rosalind Dixon, Constitutional Design Deferred, UNSW Law Research Paper No. 18-63. (September 2018) (exploring the rise of a new type of constitutional deferral by formulating specific constitutional provisions that directly conflict with one another, thereby requiring courts or legislators to make substantive choices resolving the conflict).
5. Tamir Moustafa,Constituting Religion: Islam, Liberal Rights, and the Malaysian State (Cambridge University Press 2018) (examining the ‘judicialization of religion’ and the radiating effects of courts on popular legal and religious consciousness).
6. Tom Ruys and Emre Turkut, Turkey’s Post-Coup ‘Purification Process’: Collective Dismissals of Public Servants under the European Convention on Human Rights, 18 (3) Human Rights Law Review (2018) (arguing that the Turkish ‘purge’ of more than 130,000 public servants in the aftermath of July 15 attempted coup cannot be reconciled with the state’s obligations under the ECHR).
7. Athanasios Psygkas, The Hydraulics of Constitutional Claims, University of Toronto Law Journal (forthcoming 2018) (arguing how multiple actors play a role in raising and resolving constitutional claims by specifically looking at legalization of same sex marriages in United States, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Ireland).

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. Papers on US and comparative law subjects are invited for a free conference on “Amending America’s Unwritten Constitution” to be held at Boston College on May 16-17, 2019, featuring roundtable discussions moderated by Vik Amar (Illinois), Mark Graber (Maryland), Sandy Levinson (Texas), Miriam Seifter (Wisconsin), Frederick Schauer (Virginia), Carolyn Shapiro (Chicago-Kent), Mark Tushnet (Harvard) and Emily Zackin (Johns Hopkins).
2. Sciences Po and Queen Mary University London are jointly organizing a seminar on ‘Interrogating the Right to Privacy and the Limits of Surveillance on September 26, 2018 in Paris, France. Interested participants must register at the earliest.
3. The University of Adelaide Law School and Amity University Law School are inviting papers for the international conference on ‘comparing and contrasting Constitutional Models of India and Australia’ to be held on February 14-15, 2019 in Noida, India. Interested scholars must submit their paper abstracts to international conference2019@gmail.com by October 10, 2018.
4. The Irish Journal of European Law is currently calling for submissions for its 2018 volume. The deadline is September 28, 2018.
5. The American Constitution Society is calling for paper submissions on topics relating to public law for a workshop within the AALS Annual Meeting to be held on January 3, 2019 in Los Angeles, USA. Interested junior scholars must submit papers by October 19, 2018 to juniorscholarsworkshop@acslaw.org.
6. The Theory and Practice of Legislation is inviting paper proposals for its special issue on ‘relationship between regulation and legislation’. Interested scholars must submit paper proposals by October 1, 2018.

Elsewhere Online

1. David R. Cameron, EU deploys Article 7 against Poland & Hungary for democratic backsliding, Yale MacMillan Center
2. George F. Will, The Supreme Court was America’s least damaged institution — until now, The Washington Post
3. Benedict Douglas, The Fundamental Tension Underlying the UK Constitution, UK Constitutional Law Association Blog
4. Moses Mugugunyeki, Land rights: Women left in the cold, The Standard
5. Adeel Hussain, Mango Scented Sovereignty: Pakistan’s Chief Justice Saqib Nisar and Baba-justice, Verfassungsblog
6. Katyayani Sinha, Non-violent speech and the violent State: Understanding ‘Sedition’ in India, The Leaflet
7. Chris Piggott-Mckellar, Dancing with Dicey: A Century of Flexible State Constitutions, AUSPUBLAW

—Richard Albert, William Stamps Farish Professor of Law, The University of Texas at Austin

Friends of I-CONnect are invited to the University of Milan for two special programs featuring Bruce Ackerman (Yale) and Susan Rose-Ackerman (Yale). To RSVP for these events, please email Antonia Baraggia at antonia.baraggia[at]unimi.it.

On Friday, October 5, 2018, the University of Milan will host a day-long conference on Bruce Ackerman’s forthcoming book entitled “The Rise of World Constitutionalism–Volume I: Revolutions Constitutions: Charismatic Leadership and the Rule of Law” (Harvard University Press). The program will be held in Sala Napoleonica, via Sant’Antonio 12, Milan.

And on Monday, October 8, 2018, the University of Milan will host a seminar with Susan Rose-Ackerman on the subject of “Corruption and Development.” The program will begin at 9:30am, and will be held in Room 420 at via Festa del Perdono 3, Milan.

All are welcome to attend.

–Tom Kabau, Co-Editor in Chief, Africa Journal of Comparative Constitutional Law; Senior Lecturer in Law, School of Law, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology

We are pleased to highlight in this forum the second issue of the Africa Journal of Comparative Constitutional Law (AJCCL) (volume 2, 2017). The AJCCL is published by JUTA Law of South Africa and is hosted by the Kenya School of Law in Nairobi. Supported by a distinguished International Advisory Board, the AJCCL provides expert analysis of and commentary on constitutional issues relevant to Africa and the developing world. The contents of this second issue include:

• Berihun Adugna Gebeye, ‘The potential role of directive principles of state policies for transformative constitutionalism in Africa’;
• Conrad M Bosire, ‘Interpreting the power of the Kenyan Senate to oversee national revenue allocated to the county governments: Building a constitutionally tenable approach’;
• Michael Nyongesa Wabwile, ‘Human rights and family policy issues under Kenya’s Marriage Act of 2014’;
• Muriuki Muriungi, ‘Procedural technicalities in the resolution of election disputes by the Supreme Court of Kenya’;
• Gabriel O Arishe, ‘Proscription of floor crossing in Nigeria: The limits of the Constitution and the Supreme Court’;
• Ndivhuwo Ishmel Moleya, ‘The right of access to information in the Kenyan Constitution: An indirect denial of other fundamental rights to non-citizens?’
• Brian Sang YK, ‘Jean Thomas, Public Rights, Private Relations (Oxford University Press, 2015)’ (book review).

Read the rest of this entry…

–Mauricio Guim, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM)

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 Supreme Court of India upheld a forestry official’s plan to kill a man-eater tigress if a concerted effort to capture her fails.
2. A High Court in South Africa ordered the state to pass legislation regulating Muslim marriages within 24 months. The order requires the state to balance the rights of women and children with traditional aspects of Sharia Law.
3. A High Court in Egypt sentenced 75 people to death, including leaders of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, for their involvement in a 2013 sit-in protests that spiraled into violenceand resulted in the death of hundreds of demonstrators by security forces.
4. The Supreme Court of India issued an interim order allowing a 25 percent safeguard duty on solar imports. Experts suggest that the Supreme Court’s decision will significantly benefit domestic producers of solar panels.
5. The Supreme Court of India issued an injunction banning construction activities in several union territories until these states comply with solid waste management programs.
6. India’s Supreme Court held the final hearings of the ongoing case between cryptocurrencies exchanges and the central bank concerning the latter’s blanket banking ban.
7. The Supreme Court of Israel rejected a petition filed against the practice of using poultry a pre-Yom Kippur Ritual.
8. The Supreme Court of Mexico joined elected President Lopez Obrador’s calls for austerity trimming its budget by more than 15 percent.
9. The Mexican ruling party MORENA rejected the Supreme Court’s budget reduction as insufficient, and will ask that Court to make further budget cuts.

In the News

1. The House of Representatives of Mexico approved a law that prohibits any official from earning more than the President.
2. Justice Ranjan Gogoi has been appointed as the 46^th Chief Justice of India Supreme Court.
3. More than 16,200 ads hit airwaves to sway Senate vote on U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
4. European lawmakers voted by a wide margin to begin a punishment procedure against Hungary for potentially breaching democratic norms, a measure never previously initiated by the European Parliament.
5. Cubans can now join public debates on new Constitution through digital platforms.
6. The National Security Advisor of the United States, John Bolton, made an excoriating attack on the International Criminal Court and threatened the institution with sanctions.
7. José Eduardo dos Santos, the former president of Angola who was one of Africa’s longest-serving heads of state, stepped down on Saturday from the leadership of the country’s governing party, Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola.
8. Venezuela and Bolivia accused the United States of plotting a coup to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, who has presided over the near collapse of that country.
9. Cambodia’s imprisoned opposition leader, Kem Sokha, was freed on bail after spending a year locked up on charges of conspiring with the United States in a plot to bring down Cambodia’s government.
10. Legal experts denounced that Australia has given “God powers” to its immigration ministers making Australia’s already opaque border control and immigration system even more vulnerable to cronyism, secrecy and abuse.
11. Several of Israel’s European allies, among them France, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdon, requested Israeli authorities to call off the demolition of a Bedouin village in the West Bank, despite effective approval from the Supreme Court of court last week.
12. Families of activists jailed during Nicaragua’s anti-government protests in April have marched in the capital, Managua, to demand their release.
13. The state of Texas passed a law requiring embryonic and fetal remains, following abortion or miscarriage, be given a “proper” burial.
14. The Trump administration ordered the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington, saying that the PLO “has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel.”
15. The Palestinian Liberation Authority filed a war crimes claim against Israel at the International Criminal Court over the expected demolition of the West Bank Village.
16. Exxon Mobil is taking to the United States Supreme Court a case against Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey for authorizing a probe into whether Exxon Mobil hid from the public knowledge of climate change risks.
17. The animal conservation group Fur-Bearers is challenging before the Supreme Court of Canada the British of Columbia conservation officers’ “unlimited authority” to kill wildlife.
18. The Inkhata Freedom Party, following an increase in murders and sexual assaults, has called for a debate on whether the death penalty in South Africa should be revived.
19. After twenty years of war, Ethiopia and Eritrea reopened crossing points on their shared border. The decision was part of a series of reconciliation moves that began in July when the two countries signed a peace agreement.
20. Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales has launched a series of attacks against the International Commission against Impunity and its main prosecutor Iván Velasquez Gómez, leaving Guatemala at the brink of a constitutional crisis that threatens a backward slide into authoritarianism.
21. Hundreds of thousands of pro-independence Catalans took over downtown Barcelona, in their largest show of force since a botched declaration of independence from Spain last October.
22. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte dares military officers to rebel amid standoff over opposition senator’s arrest.
23. Jailed leftwing leader Lula drops out of Brazil presidential race. Ex-president abandons campaign to reclaim country’s leadership, naming Fernando Haddad as Workers party candidate.

New Scholarship

1. Ana Micaela Alterio & Francisca Pou Giménez, Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America: The Emergence of Ius Commune, Verfassungs un Recht in Übersee.
2. Heinz Klug, Decolonization, Compensation, and Constitutionalism: Land, Wealth, and the Sustainability of Constitutionalism in Post-Apartheid South Africa, South African Journal on Human Rights (reviewing the historical legacies of apartheid and the conditions of the country’s democratic transition, and exploring ways to address the continuing legacies of apartheid today).
3. Theunis Roux, The Politico-Legal Dynamics of Judicial Review (2018) (proposing a typological theory of judicial review regimes and testing how countries, such as India, Australia and Zimbabwe, transition between these types).
4. Cary Franklin, The New-Class Blindness, Yale Law Journal (forthcoming) (showing that a non-trivial number of fundamental rights came to be recognized as such because they are essential not only to liberty but also to the equal citizenship of people without financial resources).
5. Gábor Attila Tóth, Constitutional Markers of Authoritarianism (arguing that contemporary authoritarianism is a sui generis system between constitutional democracy and dictatorship, and suggesting that features of contemporary authoritarianism can be identified with the help of constitutional markers contained in the text of a constitution and the deep structure of a constitutional system).
6. Aziz Z. Huq, Article II and Anti-Discrimination Norms, Michigan Law Review (forthcoming) (arguing that there is not analytically defensible and practicably tractable boundary between Japanese-American Internment in WWII and President Trump’s travel ban, and suggesting that the failed Supreme Court’s effort to distinguish them can be understood as an allowing an “Article II discretion to discriminate”).
7. Adam M. Samaha & Roy Germano, Is the Second Amendment a Second-Class Right? (comparing five fields of constitutional litigation in the United States and finding that success rates of gun rights are at the low end).
8. Sean Butler, Visions of World Order: Multipolarity and the Global Constitutional Framework (analyzing how the coming transition to multipolarity will affect the operation and evolution of the international legal regimes).
9. Manuel Cases, Functional Justiciability and the Existence of a Dispute: A Means of Jurisdictional Avoidance (examining the Court’s treatment of the existence of a dispute jurisdictional objection as a general means of avoiding cases).

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. The Law Department at the University of Florence and the Eötvös Lorán University Faculty of Law are hosting the Sixth Comparative Law Workshop on November 23, 2018. The topic of the workshop is “the principle of legal certainty from a comparative perspective.” Paper proposals are due October 5, 2018.
2. The Institute for Comparative Federalism of Eurac Research and the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Innsbruck are hosting the 10th edition of their Winter School on Federalism and Governance. The course will take place in Austria and Italy from 4 to 15 February. Applications are due October 21, 2018.
3. The University of Sofia is holding the Sofia “Erasmus” Legal Science Week. The topic of the conference is the Role of Courts in Contemporary Legal Orders. The deadline for application submissions is December 15, 2018.
4. The University of Melbourne Law School is requesting papers for its Cities and Federal Theory Workshop, which will take place in Melbourne on June 20, 2019. Applications are due November 1, 2018.
5. The American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy will host its annual Conference at Boston University School of Law on September 28, 2018. The topic of the conference is Democratic Failure. RSVP here.
6. The Journal of Internal Displacement and Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre welcomes manuscripts for the call on ‘Getting to 2030: The Future of Internal Displacement and Sustainable Development’ (Special Issue January 2019). The deadline for the submission is November 8, 2018.
7. The Journal of Constitutional Law, issued by the Constitutional Court of Georgia, welcomes contributions for its next volume. The deadline for the submissions is October 1, 2018.
8. The City College of New York invites submissions for its “Critical Perspective on Human Rights Conference that will be held on March 13-15, 2019. Proposal of abstract should be submitted by October 31, 2018.
9. Centre for Law and Culture St Mary’s University, Twickenham with the University of Westminster and GSM London will host the Conference “Race: Why can’t the law effect genuine equality?”. Submissions of abstract of paper are welcomed by September, 28 2018.
10. The Research Area “Migration and Diversity” of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center invites submissions for a multi-disciplinary conference on minority and majority rights. The deadline for the submissions is October 1, 2018
11. The Asian Law Institute (ASLI) at the National University of Singapore will host the 16th ASLI Conference in Singapore on 11 and 12 June 2019. The ASLI invites submissions of abstract of paper by December 3, 2018.
12. The IV International Congress “Perspectives of contemporary constitutionalism. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Italian Constitution and the 40th Anniversary of the Spanish Constitution” that will be held in Murcia (Spain) on 28-30 November 2018, invites submissions of abstract of paper. The deadline for the submission is September 24, 2018.

Elsewhere Online

1. Stephen Breyer, American Courts Can’t Ignore the World, The Atlantic.
2. David R. Cameron, Gain for Sweden Democrats and parliamentary deadlock in Sunday’s election, Yale McMillan Center.
3. Daniel Kelemen & Kim Lane Scheppele, How to Stop funding Autocracy in the EU, Verfassungsblog.
4. Michael W. McConnell, Look past the politics–Kavanaugh superbly qualified for the U.S. Supreme Court, San Francisco Chronicle.
5. Kanad Bagchid, Decriminalizing Homosexuality in India as a Matter of Transformative Constitutionalism, Verfassungsblog.
6. Ilya Somin, Why Settled Law Isn’t Really Settled– and Why That’s Often a Good Thing, Reason.
7. Simon Tisdall, Trump’s Attack on ICC is the unacceptable face of US exceptionalism, The Guardian.
8. Ishaan Tharoor, The White House’s New Attack on the International System, Washington Post.
9. Dimitry Kochenov, False Accountability, Elusive Rule of Law, Verfassungsblog.
10. Greg Lukianoff & Adam Goldstein, Good New and Bad New about Campus Free Speech Codes, Reason.
11. David Super, The Paradox of Liberal Fascination with an Article V Convention, Balkanization.
12. Sandy Levinson, Abandon All Hopes, Why I Persist, Balkanization
13. Benedict Douglas, The Fundamental Tension Underlying the U.K. Constitution, U.K. Constitutional Law Association.
14. Madara Melnika & Julian Senders, Self-Protecting Democracy and Electoral Rights, Verfassungsblog.
15. Kevin Hay, Canadians Need to Debate Judicial Activism, The Province.
16. Gerald Magliocca, Our Civic Religion, Balkanization.
17. Mark Tushnet, On “Magic Bullets” and a Constitutional Convention, Balkanization.
18. Kahraman Altun & Johannes Müler, WTO Option in Practice: How No Deal Brexit Would Seriously Damage Key UK Industries, Verfassungsblog.
19. Akeksandar Pavkovíc, How likely –and dangerous– is a Kosovo/Serbia “Land Swap”?

—Monica Cappelletti, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland

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 Federal Constitutional Court of Germany will conduct an oral hearing in November concerning the European Banking Union Regulations.
2. The Constitutional Court of South Korea has declared unconstitutional the collection of DNA samples of criminals without their permission.
3. The Constitutional Court of South Korea ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny college professors the right to form labor unions.
4. The Constitutional Court of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has excluded Jean Pierre Bemba from the upcoming presidential election scheduled for 23 December 2018.
5. The Constitutional Court of Guatemala reversed a Supreme Court decision to reinstate the Escobal mine’s licence and ordered that nearby communities be consulted.
6. The Supreme Court of India decriminalized gay sex.
7. The Supreme Court of Ireland will decide whether to hear abortion poll challenge appeal.
8. The International Court of Justice begins hearing Mauritius claim that Britain forced territory exchange for independence.
9. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that proceedings before the Armenian courts concerning the smuggling of enriched uranium were not fair because key witnesses were never heard.

In the News

1. The Ukrainian Parliament published a constitutional reform bill concerning the strategic course for obtaining full membership of Ukraine in the EU and NATO.
2. The Cambodian Parliament held its first session since the July vote.
3. The Iraqi Parliament has met for the first time since elections in May.
4. The Iranian Parliament drops plan to impeach education minister.
5. The Irish Government decided to postpone the constitutional referendum on the ‘sexist’ constitutional reference to a woman’s place in the home.
6. The Uganda Government withdrew Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2017 that aimed at resolve the problem of delayed implementation of government infrastructure and investment projects due to disputes arising out of the compulsory land acquisition process.
7. The Danish Government decided for medicinal cannabis subsidy for terminally ill patients.
8. The Philippine President revokes amnesty of political opponent over historic attempted coup.
9. The Mexican National Human Rights Commission is calling on federal authorities to investigate the allegedly illegal detention and torture of 17 people by marines.
10. The UN Human Rights Council will hold its thirty-ninth regular session from 10 to 28 September 2018.

New Scholarship

1. Grainne de Burca, Shaming Human Rights, International Journal of Constitutional Law (forthcoming) (reviewing Samuel Moyn, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (Harvard University Press, 2018))
2. Marta Baretta, Olurotimi Osha, St John Howard-Brown, Victoria Deliege, and Victor Freire, An investigation of the right to life according to the ECHR regime: putative asbestos case (2018) Diritti Comparati, Working Paper 3 (analyzing the application of article 2 ECHR in historical cases of the Court)
3. Shai Dothan, The Three Traditional Approaches to Treaty Interpretation: A Current Application to the European Court of Human Rights (2018) iCourts Working Paper Series (examining how the European Court of Human Rights has developed its own version of the rules of treaty interpretation, combining the three traditional approaches – the textual approach, the subjective approach, and the teleological approach)
4. Adoración Galera Victoria, The displacement of social Europe. The Spanish case (2018) 2 Diritti Comparati (analyzing the European Social Model and exploring the effects of anti-crisis measures adopted in Spain and the resulting loss of social rights)
5. Janneke Gerards, Margin of Appreciation and Incrementalism in the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights (2018) Human Rights Law Review (analyzing the application of margin of appreciation doctrine by the ECtHR and demonstrating how the Court has used this doctrine as an instrument to reconcile European protection of fundamental rights and national diversity)
6. Ursula Kilkelly, Ton Liefaard, International Human Rights of Children (2018) (exploring the meaning and implementation of international children’s rights law, as laid down in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and related international and regional human rights instruments)
7. Catarina Santos Botelho, Constitutional Narcissism on the Couch of Psychoanalysis: Constitutional Unamendability in Portugal and Spain, in Lech Garlicki and Yaniv Roznai (eds), European Journal of Law Reform – Special issue on European Perspectives on Constitutional Unamendability (forthcoming 2019) (comparing the Portuguese Constitution, which has the longest unamendable clause in the world, with the silence of the Spanish Constitution regarding the language of eternity)
8. Andreas von Staden, Strategies of Compliance with the European Court of Human Rights. Rational Choice Within Normative Constraints (2018) (exploring the nature of human rights challenges in two enduring liberal democracies—Germany and the United Kingdom. The cross-national overview of compliance illustrates a strong correlation between the quality of a country’s democracy and the rate at which judgments have met compliance and details how governments, legislators, and domestic judges responded to the court’s demands for either financial compensation or changes to laws, policies, and practices)
9. The Democratic Decay Resource (DEM-DEC) released the second monthly update of its bibliography on democratic decay (September 2018), containing new research worldwide from August 2018; key items from earlier in 2018 and late 2017; a significant list of items suggested by DEM-DEC users; and forthcoming research. A post introducing the Update was published on Verfassungsblog on 4 September.

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The IV International Congress “Perspectives of contemporary constitutionalism. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Italian Constitution and the 40th Anniversary of the Spanish Constitution” that will be held in Murcia (Spain) on 28-30 November 2018, invites submissions of abstract of paper. The deadline for the submission is September 24, 2018.
2. The Asian Law Institute (ASLI) at the National University of Singapore will host the 16th ASLI Conference in Singapore on 11 and 12 June 2019. The ASLI invites submissions of abstract of paper by December 3, 2018.
3. The European Research Council Project “Transnational Private-Public Arbitration as Global Regulatory Governance: Exploring The Lex Mercatoria Publica” at the Amsterdam Center of International Law issued a call for papers for a workshop on “Engaging with Domestic Law in International Adjudication: Factfinding or Transnational Law-Making?” to take place February 27-March 1, 2019, at the University of Amsterdam. The deadline for the submission is September 15, 2018.
4. The Research Area “Migration and Diversity” of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center invites submissions for a multi-disciplinary conference on minority and majority rights. The deadline for the submissions is October 1, 2018.
5. Centre for Law and Culture St Mary’s University, Twickenham with the University of Westminster and GSM London will host the Conference “Race: Why can’t the law effect genuine equality?”. Submissions of abstract of paper are welcomed by September, 28 2018.
6. The City College of New York invites submissions for its “Critical Perspective on Human Rights2 Conference that will be held on March 13-15, 2019. Proposal of abstract should be submitted by October 31, 2018.
7. I-Courts in Copenhagen issues a call for papers for its Interdisciplinary Conference “Who is afraid of the International Criminal Courts” that will be held on January 25-27, 2019. The deadline for the submissions is September 15, 2018.
8. The Journal of Constitutional Law, issued by the Constitutional Court of Georgia, welcomes contributions for its next volume. The deadline for the submissions is October 1, 2018.
9. The Journal of Internal Displacement and Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre welcomes manuscripts for the call on ‘Getting to 2030: The Future of Internal Displacement and Sustainable Development’ (Special Issue January 2019). The deadline for the submission is November 8, 2018.

Elsewhere Online

1. Idris Fassassi, Removing ‘Race’ and Adding ‘Gender’ to the French Constitution: On Constitutional Redundancy and Symbols, Constitionnet
2. Helena Guimarães de Oliveira, My Body, the Majority’s Choice? A Comparative Overview of Abortion Laws in Ireland and Argentina, Verfassungsblog
3. Sreang Heng, Elections under oppression in Cambodia: a predictable outcome?, Yale Macmillian Centre
4. Thomas Hochmann, Shedding Light or Shooting in the Dark – How to define Fake News?, Verfassungsblog
5. Grant Hooper, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v SZVFW: The High Court on Unreasonableness and The Role of Judicial Review, AUSPUBLAW
6. Zann Isacson, Combating Terrorism Online: Possible Actors and Their Roles, Lawfare Blog
7. Katalin Kelemen, The Agreement on a Unified Patent Court cannot be ratified by Hungary, the Constitutional Court says, DirittiComparati
8. Raffaela Kunz, A further “constitutionalization” to the detriment of the individual?, Volkerrechtsblog
9. Jordi Nieva-Fenoll, Spanish Jurisdiction at Stake: Puigdemont’s Judge to be Judged by a Belgian Court?, Verfassungsblog
10. Jan Przerwa, The Pisciotti case: how can free movement rights impact EU citizen extradition to a third country?, European law blog
11. Mario Savino, The Diciotti Affair: beyond the Populist Farce, Verfassungsblog
12. Johan Sigholm, I Wrote About Russian Election Interference. Then I Was Trolled Online, Lawfare Blog
13. Sebastian Spitra, The politics of cultural heritage protection in international law, Volkerrechtsblog
14. Sophie Starrenburg, Cultural heritage protection: a truly “global” legal problem?, Volkerrechtsblog
15. Joe Tomlinson and Katy Sheridan, Judicial Review, Evidence, and Systemic Unfairness in the UK, IACL-AIDC Blog
16. Sam Wice, Proposed Reform of House Rules Would Not Be Enforceable, Blog of the Yale Journal of Regulation