What’s New in Public Law

–Angélique Devaux, Cheuvreux Notaires, Paris, France, Diplômée notaire, LL.M. Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law

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 gave women access to Kerala’s Sabarimala Temple.
2. The Supreme Court of Romania ruled that same-sex couples have the same equal rights to a private and family life as heterosexual couples, only a week before a referendum on prohibiting same-sex marriage is due to be held n October 6-7.
3. The Supreme Court of India ruled that adultery is no longer a crime but can remain a ground for divorce.
4. The Supreme Court of South Africa allowed the private use of marijuana, upholding a lower court’s ruling that found the criminalization of cannabis was unconstitutional.
5. A federal U.S. judge stroke down Kentucky’s abortion restriction.

In the News

1. The European Union sued the State of Poland in the EU’s high court for undermining independence of courts.
2. Mexican lawmakers submitted a bill to reform presidential term referendum.
3. Japan’s Prime Minister has been reelected and hopes to revise the Constitution.
4. Italy passes a decree that will make deporting migrants easier.
5. Bangladesh will consider amending law seen curbing free speech.

New Scholarship

1. Pierre-Emmanuel Dupont, Contested Sovereignty over Land Territory and Maritime Zones in Stress Testing The Law and The Sea, Koninklijke Brill, Nv (2018) (exploring legal issues implicating situations where the issue of maritime entitlement arises with respect to coastal territory over which sovereignty is uncertain or disputed)’
2. Seth F. Kreimer, Still Living After fifty years : A Census of Judicial Review Under the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1968, Rutgers Law Review, Vol. 71, 2019 forthcoming (exploring the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s exercise of judicial review under the 1968 Pennsylvania’s Constitution)
3. Mohamed A. Arafa, A Question to the President of the United States, Donald Trump : Is It a Travel Ban, or a Muslim Ban, or a Travel Muslim Ban ? 5 Revista de Investigações Constitucionais (Journal of Constitutional Research) 2 (Curitiba, Brasil) (Fall 2018) (analysing the constitutionality of Donald Trump’s “travel ban”)
4. Clare Ryan, Europe’s Moral Margin : Parental Aspirations and the European Court of Human Rights, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 56, 2018 (challenging the way in which the European Court of Human Rights deploys its doctrine of the “margin of appreciation” in order to defer to sensitive moral and ethical decisions taken by domestic institutions)
5. Lorne Neudorf, Reassessing the Constitutional Foundation of Delegated Legislation in Canada, Dalhousie Law Journal (Forthcoming 2018) (examining the constitutional implications of delegated legislation in Canada and proposing reforms to better safeguard the constitutional role of Parliament).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Centre for the Study of European Contract Law of the University of Amsterdam is offering a PhD position in the field of private law (including private international law). Interested parties can formulate their own research proposal which has to be submitted before 1 October 2018. More information can be found here.
2. Columbia Law School, Georgetown University Law School, Stanford Law School, UCLA School of Law, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California Center for Law, History, and Culture invite submissions for the thirteenth meeting of the Law and Humanities Junior Scholars Workshop, to be held at Penn Law School in Philadelphia, PA, on June 2 and 3, 2019.
3. The ERC project on The Rules of Interpretation of Customary International Law (TRICI-Law project)and the ESIL Interest Group on the Theory and Philosophy of International Law have issued a call for papers for a conference on “The Theory and Philosophy of Customary International Law and Its Interpretation,” which will take place May 24-25, 2019, at the University of Groningen.
4. The Arab Association of Constitutional Law and International IDEA, with the support of the University of Legal and Political Sciences of Tunisia call for papers for the fourth edition of the Arab Association’s Constitutional Academy that will take place in Tunis, Tunisia, from 26 November to 07 December 2017
5. The Boston College Law School, with support from the Institute for Liberal Arts Submissions are invited from faculty and graduate students for a two-day conference on “Amending America’s Unwritten Constitution,” a timely subject of importance in history, law and politics. Interested scholars should email a CV and abstract no longer than 750 words by November 15, 2018 to tdo@law.utexas.edu on the understanding that the abstract will form the basis of the pre-conference draft to be submitted by April 15, 2019
6. The Asian Law Conference calls for papers for its 16th conference that will take place on June 11-12, 2019 at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law.
7. Erasmus School of Law at Rotterdam University under the ERC project ‘Building EU Civil Justice’ calls for papers (poster format) for the conference on Challenge Accepted! Exploring Pathways to Civil Justice in Europe that will takes place on 19-20 November 2018 at Rotterdam University
8. Freie Universität Berlin and Friedrich Schiller University Jena will convene a workshop on the theme of Current Trends in Foreign Relations Lawon May 9-10, 2019.

Elsewhere Online

1. Brent Kendall and Jess Bravin, Supreme Court Opens New Term Without Ninth Justice in Place, The Wall Street Journal
2. A Year Later, Catalonia’s Secession Vote Scars Region, Spain, The New York Times
3. Oliver Garner, Can the United Kingdom unilaterally revolke its article 50 notification to withdraw from the EU ? Wightman v Secretary of State for Dexeu [2018] CSIH 62, European Law Blog
4. Colin Murray, Brexit and the « Constitutional Integrity » of the United Kingdom, UK Constitutional Law Association
5. René Uruena, Transplant Pains : What’s at Stake in Guatemala’s Consitutional Showdown ? Verfassungsblog