I·CONnect

– Irina Criveț, PhD Candidate in Public Law, Koç 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 iconnecteditors@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine initiated the termination of the membership of the Constitutional Courts of the Russian Federation and Belarus in the World Conference on Constitutional Justice. Consequently, the Constitutional Court of Russia announced it has withdrawn from the Conference of Constitutional Courts of Europe (CECC) as of March 5.
2. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal found that European Convention on Human Rights is ‘incompatible’ with the Constitution.
3. The Supreme Court of Canada will decide whether a Quebec law that forbids the growing of cannabis for personal use is in line with the constitution.
4. The Colombian Constitutional Court recognized a non-binary gender marker.
5. The Constitutional Court of Spain annulled many provisions of the Catalan rent cap law that came into effect in September 2020.

In the News

1. EU heads of states and governments present in Versailles on the 10^th of March 2022 support Ukraine in pursuing its European path.
2. Justice Radwa Helmi became the first woman to sit on the bench of Egypt’s State Council, a top court in the country.
3. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers consulted with the Parliamentary Assembly on further measures to be taken under Article 8 of the Council of Europe’ Statute in response to the serious violations by the Russian Federation of its statutory obligations as a Member State.
4. Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court Akil Kureshi retired Sunday ending a remarkable nearly two-decade-long career as a judge of a constitutional court.
5. South African judge Raymond Zondo was appointed on Thursday as head of the Constitutional Court.
6. Constitutional Court Justice Aldis Lavins was elected president of the Latvian Constitutional Court on Thursday.

New Scholarship

1. George Tsebelis, Constitutional Rigidity Matters: A Veto Players Approach British Journal of Political Science 52(1) (2022) (explains why the lack of constitutional rigidity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for significant constitutional amendments in democratic countries)
2. Jerg Gutmann, Roee Sarel and Stefan Voigt, Measuring Constitutional Loyalty: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic ILE Working Paper Series, No. 55 (2022) (show that the citizens’ support for Covid-19 mitigation policies declines if courts signal doubts about their constitutionality and that effect of constitutional loyalty depends on citizens’ characteristics, such as their confidence in the courts and their moral convictions)
3. Gauri Pillai, A Continuing Constitutional Conversation: Locating Nitisha International Journal of Discrimination and the Law 22 (1) (2022) (examines the role the Nitisha v Union of India had in India’s constitutional jurisprudence on non-discrimination) 
4. Antonio-Martín Porras-Gómez, Constitutional bills of rights and democratic transformation in post-authoritarian scenarios, The International Journal of Human Rights (2022) (examines the relationship between bills of rights and democratic transformation processes in post-authoritarian settings)
5. Guha Krishnamurthi, The Constitutional Right to Bench Trial, North Carolina Law Review, 100 (forthcoming 2022) (offers a comprehensive and multimodal argument that defendants have a constitutional right to bench trial)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Tel Aviv University announced the launch of the Emergency Fellowship Fund for Ukrainian Graduate Students. The application must be sent to Michal Linder at TAU International –Intlprojects@tauex.tau.ac.il including a 1-page (up to 500 words) statement describing the research, letter of recommendation from the advisor and a document showing active status at home university in Ukraine. The applications will be considered on a rolling basis effective immediately and until further notice.
2. The Melbourne Law School issued a call for applications for postdoctoral fellows in International Law. The deadline for applications is 11 May 2022.
3. The Research Centre for East European Studies (Forschungsstelle Osteuropa – FSO) at the University of Bremen launched the Hans Koschnick Special Scholarships For Researchers At Risk for researchers at risk from Ukraine and threatened researchers from Russia and Belarus.
4. The Faculty of Law of UiT The Arctic University of Tromsø issued a call for proposals for the 2022 Critical Legal Conference. The theme of this year is LIMINALITIES. Please send your proposals to vito.delucia@uit.no.
5. ICON-S Chapter Germany invites participants to the 2nd Conference that will take place on 15-16 September 2022 – Margins in/of Law – at Justus Liebig University, Giessen. The abstract (500-max. 1000 words) and a short CV (max. 2-3 pp.) must be sent to iconsdeutschland@gmail.com in German or English by April 15, 2022.

Elsewhere online

1. Saeed Bagheri, Discredit to the Turkish Government Over the Social and Political Inequalities, Oxford Human Rights Hub
2. João Alípio Correa, Autocratisation: the key to capturing today’s democratic difficulties, The Loop ECPR’s Political Science Blog
3. Utkarsh Roy, The Constitutional Case Against EWS Reservations – Exploring the Principle of Reparative Justice under the Indian Constitution,  Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy
4. Jeff Sebo, Why does justice for animals matter?, OUPblog
5. Geo Quinot, The Urgency of Procurement Reform after State Capture in South Africa, African Law Matters Blog
6. Eliav Lieblich, Not Far Enough: The European Court of Human Rights’ Interim Measures, Just Security
7. Elisa Chieregato, The first CJEU decision on domestic workers: the role of EU equality law in challenging unjustified exclusions from labour rights and social protections, European Law Blog
8. South Korea’s populist turn, East Asia Forum
9. Evghenii Ceban, The humanitarian crisis brewing on Ukraine’s border, Open Democracy

–Silvio Roberto Vinceti, Adjunct Lecturer, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

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 iconnecteditors@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The International Court of Justice is scheduled to hold hearings on the adoption of provisional measures against Russia on March 7 and 8
2. The International Court of Justice Chief Prosecutor announced a probe into possible war crimes committed on Ukraine soil
3. The European Court of Human Rights granted interim measures intimating Russia to refrain from military attacks against civilians and civilian objects
4. A splintered United States Supreme Court reversed an appellate decision denying use of state secrets privilege against discovery requests of a now Guantánamo detainee that was subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques”
5. Georgia Constitutional Court refused to suspend controversial legislation dissolving independent authority monitoring state officials’ offenses
6. Belgium’s Human Rights League appealed to the Constitutional Court to void pandemic law
7. Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that four Palestinian families cannot be evicted until the Minister of Justice settles land ownership dispute
8. The Constitutional Court of Colombia ruled that citizens should be able to have their gender registered as non-binary
9. The Italian Constitutional Courts published the decisions thwarting referendums on civil liability of judges, consensual homicide, and soft drugs

In the News

1. The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to condemn Russia and demand that troops be pulled from Ukraine
2. The Council of Europe suspended Russian Federation from its rights of representation in the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly as a result of Russia’s armed attack on Ukraine
3. The European Commission published the Guidelines on the application of the conditionality regulation
4. Turkish opposition parties coalesced in a bid to defeat President Tayyip Erdogan and restore rule of law
5. After a new round of allegations against Guatemalan President anti-corruption prosecutors have either resigned, fled the country, or have been arrested
6. Several legal organizations in South Africa urged the Judicial Service Commission to adopt a code of conduct and new appointment criteria before continuing its work
7. President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech addressed the situation in Ukraine, inflation, and pandemic economic recovery, invoking a “Unity Agenda for the nation”
8. Hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson are expected to start on March 21
9. Iowa became the eleventh American State barring transgender athletes from female sports

New Scholarship

1. Ramon Feldbrin and Barry Sullivan, The Supreme Court and the People: Communicating Decisions to the Public (2022) (claiming that US Supreme Court should take inspiration from other Constitutional Courts and make its decisions more accessible to the general public)
2. Gary Lawson and Guy Seidman, Are People in Federal Territories Part of “We the People of the United States”? (forthcoming 2022) (discussing evidence on, and fiduciary implications of, including territorial inhabitants in the notion of “We the People of the United States”)
3. Conor Casey and Adrian Vermeule, Myths of Common Good Constitutionalism (2022) (addressing misrepresentations of common good constitutionalism)
4. Eoin Daly, Popular Sovereignty After Brexit (2022) (disputing the claim that lack of stronger “legal institutionalization” of popular sovereignty had a significant role in Brexit political crisis)
5. Jan Komárek, Freedom and Power of European Constitutional Scholarship (2021) (addressing the interplay between legal scholarship as objective science and constitutional scholars’ political engagement, and the effects on academic freedom)
6. Anne Carter, Proportionality and Facts in Constitutional Adjudication (2022) (discussing proportionality as a fact-finding test in comparative constitutional adjudication and particularly its use in Australian constitutional law) [Discount Price – use the code GLR A6AUK for UK orders and GLR A6AUS for US orders to get 20% off]
7. Paolo Sandro, The Making of Constitutional Democracy. From Creation to Application of Law (2022) (defending the distinction between creation and application of the law and stressing its salience for constitutional democracy) [Discount Price – use the code GLR A6AUK for UK orders and GLR A6AUS for US orders to get 20% off]
8. Laura Cahillane and David Kenny, Lessons from Ireland’s Judicial Conduct Controversy (forthcoming 2021) (describing the debate over judicial conduct in Ireland, the establishment of the Judicial Council Act and constitutional status of the golf-gate controversy)
9. Katarína Šipulová, Samuel Spáč, David Kosař, Tereza Papoušková, and Viktor Derka, Judicial Self-Governance Index: Towards better understanding of the role of judges in governing the judiciary (2022) (proposing an innovative index for measuring judicial self-governance and claiming that the judicial council model is not a necessary avenue to judicial empowerment)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and Rule of Law calls for submissions for articles to be published in Volume 26 of the Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law (UNYB). Abstract deadline is April 15, 2022.
2. The International Association of Constitutional Law invites submissions for the conference “Political Sentiments and Moral Emotions in Constitutional Law” to be held at the Facultad de Derecho UNC in Cordoba (Argentina) on August 9-10, 2022. Abstract Deadline on May 1, 2022.
3. The International Association of Constitutional Law invites abstracts for its second online Junior Scholars Forum to be hosted at the UNAM Institute for Legal Research and the uOttawa Public Law Centre on September 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 2022. Submission is due by April 1, 2022.
4. The Institute for Comparative Federalism at EURAC Research (South Tyrol) invites applications to a full-time researcher position. Interested candidates should submit their applications by March 20, 2022.
5. The Institute for Comparative Federalism is going to host an online “Marie Skłodowska-Curie Week” from May 23 to 27, 2022. Prospective applicants for an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship at EURAC Research will be accompanied in shaping their fellowship proposal. The application deadline is April 3, 2022.
6. ICON-S Italian chapter calls for papers and panels for its annual meeting to be held in Bologna on September 16-17, 2022. This year theme is “The Future of the State.” Abstracts are due by June 1, 2022.
7. Registration is now open for the International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism’s Advanced Research Seminar in Constitutional Change.
8. Oxford Programme in Asian Laws announced a workshop on “Political Parties & Constitutions in Asia” to be held in Oxford on September 23-24, 2022. Paper proposals should be submitted by April 1, 2022.
9. By April 1, 2022, IPSA Comparative Judicial Studies Committee will publish its draft program for the conference “Courts under Pressure: Threats to Judicial Independence and Rule of Law across the Globe” to be held at the Mortara Center for International Studies (Georgetown University) on August 10-12, 2022.
10. The Italian Association of Constitutionalists (AIC) issued a statement condemning the war in Ukraine.
11. On behalf of the German Society of International Law Prof. Dr. Anne Peters published a statement decrying Russia’s violation of international law.

Elsewhere Online

1. Päivi Leino-Sandberg and Hanna Ojanen, Time for Military Integration in the EU?: Armed aggression and the scope of Article 42 TEU, Verfassungsblog
2. Ralph Janik, Putin’s War against Ukraine: Mocking International Law, EJIL: Talk!
3. Oona Hathaway, Scott Shapiro,  Putin Can’t Destroy the International Order by Himself, Lawfare
4. Michael Ramsey, Using Force in Ukraine Requires Congress’ Approval, Originalism Blog
5. Andrew Koppelman, Ketanji Brown Jackson and the job of a public defender, The Hill
6. Jonathan H. Adler, When Ketanji Brown Jackson Represented the Cato Institute, The Volokh Conspiracy
7. Eric Segall, Of Originalism, Political Polarization, Tolerance, and the Importance of Talking to the Other Side, Dorf On Law
8. Diana Dimitrova, Ekimdzhiev and others v. Bulgaria: Secret Surveillance and Electronic Communications Surveillance only with Adequate Safeguards, or Nothing New under the Sun, Strasbourg Observer

—Richard Albert, Professor of World Constitutions and Director of Constitutional Studies, The University of Texas at Austin

A Statement in Support of the People of Ukraine has been issued for any member of ICON-S to endorse in her/his/their personal capacity. Signatures may be added here.

Thank you to Professor Phoebe Okowa for drafting the Statement and to Professor Ruth Rubio Marín for her counsel.

Please note that ICON-S takes no institutional position.

***

—Robert Rybski, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw, Rector’s Plenipotentiary for Environment and Sustainable Development.

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 iconnecteditors@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Court of Justice of the European Union ordered Poland to pay the European Commission a daily penalty of one million EUR for each day of further functioning of the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court.
2. Colombia’s Constitutional Court voted 5-4 to decriminalize abortions in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.
3. The Acting Head of Ukraine’s Constitutional Court rejected the adoption of any possible new Constitution.
4. The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Kosovo issued a ruling in which it stated the violation of due process in regards to granting feed-in tariff for generation of electricity from renewable energy sources.
5. The German Federal Constitutional Court published its annual report with its 70^th anniversary as a leitmotiv.

In the News

1. Russia invaded Ukraine on the 24^th of February 2022.
2. State leaders condemned the Russian invasion as a breach of international law and a grave breach of the United Nations Charter.
3. China rejected to determine Russia’s ‘special military operation’ as an invasion on Ukraine.
4. Alabama lawmakers seek to remove racist language from the state’s 121-year-old Constitution.
5. A Committee within Chile’s Constitutional Convention greenlighted a proposal to grant sexual and reproductive rights in the country’s new Constitution.
6. The Venice Commission criticized constitutional amendment which will be submitted to referendum on 27 February 2022.

New Scholarship

1. Jan Podkowik, Robert Rybski & Marek Zubik, Judicial dialogue on data retention laws: A breakthrough for European constitutional courts?, International Journal of Constitutional Law vol. 19, issue 5 (2021) (providing a comparative analysis of over a dozen of European constitutional courts that ruled on the same piece of European Union’s legislation that introduced a measure of mass invigilation)
2. David Kosar& Ladislav Vyhnánek, The Constitution of Czechia. A Contextual Analysis (2021) (providing a contextual and authoritative overview of the principles, doctrines and institutions that underpin the Czech constitution)
3. W. Gregory Voss, Transatlantic Data Transfer Compliance, forthcoming 28 Journal of Science & Technology Law (2022) (examines challenges in regards to transatlantic data transfer post-Schrems II)
4. Tom Ginsburg & Mila Versteeg, The bound executive: Emergency powers during the pandemic, International Journal of Constitutional Law vol. 19, issue 5 (2021) (presenting how courts, legislatures and subnational governments constrained national executives within their execution of emergency powers)
5. Pasquale Viola, From the Principles of International Environmental Law to Environmental Constitutionalism: Competetitive or Cooperative Influences?, Routledge (2022) (discusses whether domestic constitutional law could be considered as the most suitable legal arena for both theoretical and pragmatic responses to environmental concerns)
6. Péter D Szigeti, Comparative law at the heart of immigration law: Criminal inadmissibility and conjugal immigration in Canada and the United States, International Journal of Constitutional Law vol. 19, issue 5 (2021) (analysing the comparative methods used in North American immigration laws since the 1880s, for evaluating criminal records and intimate partnerships)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Academy for European Human Rights Protection at the University of Cologne invites submissions of abstracts for Young Researchers’ Workshop, 14-15 September 2022. Organizers welcome submissions on future-oriented research questions such as the impact of technological developments on human rights, the idea of developing “non-human” human rights in connection with harm to the environment and climate change, human rights as a remedy against populism, potential further human-rights problems in the area of communication, potential East-West or North-South cleavages as well as questions about the future of the protection mechanisms that are currently in place. Post-doctoral and doctoral researchers should submit their abstracts by the 30^th of April 2022.
2. The British Irish Chapter of ICON-S invites submissions of papers and panels for an online conference to be held 26-28 April, titled ‘The Constitutional Architecture of these Islands’. The submission deadline has been extended to Friday 4 March.
3. The European Constitutional Law Review invites proposals for a special section to be published in one of the 2023 issues for a set of interesting articles on a topic of European constitutional law produced within a research project or conference. The deadline for submissions is by 1 September 2022.
4. The International Center for Ethno-Religious Mediation (ICERM), New York, organizes its annual conference 2022 International Conference on Ethnic and Religious Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding, 28-29 September 2022. Organizers will consider submissions from multidisciplinary fields of study and practice on ethnic, racial and religious conflicts in countries around the world. The deadline for abstract submissions is 18 April 2022.
5. The Asia-Pacific Journal of International Humanitarian Law calls for papers to its 2022 Edition. Submission of articles should touch upon subjects related to international humanitarian law, humanitarian policy or humanitarian action. The Journal accepts papers on a rolling basis.

Elsewhere Online

1. Alex Putzer & Laura Burgers, European Rights of Nature Initiatives, IACL-Blog
2. Antonio Di Marco, Neutrality of the Olympic Movement and Freedom of Expression, Verfassungsblog
3. Başak Ekinci, Opposition Alliance in Turkey: Can it Restore Democracy?, IACL-Blog
4. Cem Abanazir, The Court of Arbitration for Sport’s Multifarious Views on Freedom of Expression, Verfassungsblog
5. Yaffa Epstein, Does the Earth Need More Legal People?, IACL-Blog
6. Pierre de Vos, Why context matters: Constitutional Court leave the hate speech threshold open to judges’ interpretation, Constitutionally Speaking