What’s New in Public Law

—Davide Bacis, PhD Student in Constitutional Law, University of Pavia (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 Supreme Court of India held that children born from void marriages are legitimate children and as such entitled to compassionate appointment.
2. The Advocate General at the European Court of Justice suggested that the right to be forgotten should apply only to users within the European Union.
3. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Azerbaijan violated a journalist’s right to privacy and to freedom of expression.
4. The European Court of Human Rights found that Germany did not violate the rights of a German couple whose children were taken into custody because of the parents’ refusal to send them to school.
5. The Constitutional Court of Guatemala ordered the UN Commissioner charged with investigating corruption in the country.
6. The European Court of Justice held that all EU countries must recognize residency rights of same sex partners, even when not allowing same sex marriage.

In the News

1. The Constitutional Court of Madagascar confirmed the election of President Andry Rajoelina.
2. Some Italian mayors have been opposing the application of the security decree backed by the Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini.
3. President Maduro of Venezuela was sworn in for his second term.
4. President Trump declared he’s ready to declare the state of emergency.
5. The US military announced the beginning of troops withdrawal from Syria.
6. The defeated candidate in the recent DR Congo elections will challenge the results in court.
7. The Israeli High Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of the Jewish Nation-State Law.

New Scholarship

1. M.L. Duarte, B. Menezes Queiroz, R. Tavares Lanceiro and T. Fidalgo de Freitas (eds.), The Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Judicial Activism of the Court of Justice of the European Union (2018) (offering a comprehensive and deep analysis of the protection of fundamental rights within the EU legal system, specifically focusing on the activity of the Court).
2. P. Auriel and P. Weil, Political Asylum and the European Union. Proposals to Overcome the Impasse (2018) (outlining the current state of art on asylum and migration policies within the EU legal system in order to offer possible solutions to overcome the crisis it’s facing).
3. M. Hailbronner, Constructing the global constitutional canon: Between authority and criticism (2018) (dealing with global constitutionalism and the necessity to build a canon responding to three main functions).
4. S. Sivaprasad Wadhia, National Security, Immigration and the Muslim Ban (2019) (focusing on the so called plenary power doctrine and its use to permeate immigration law with national security concepts).
5. N.S. Chapma, Due Process of War (2019) (offering a comprehensive study on the application of the due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to government’s deprivation of rights during war).
6. N.W. Barber, M. Cahill and R. Ekins (eds.), The Rise and Fall of the European Constitution (2019) (providing an interesting analysis of the reasons behind the failure of the Constitutional Treaty).
7. G.R. Stone and L.C. Bollinger (eds.), The Free Speech Century (2019) (evaluating the development of free speech doctrine since the landmark decision of Schenck v United States of 1919).
8. J. Contesse, Settling Human Rights Violations (2019) (offering a study on the practice of friendly settlements and the challenges they raise in settling human rights violations).
9. We are pleased to share a partial bibliography of scholarship in comparative constitutional law in 2018, provided to us by Professor Mark Kende (Drake): Partial Bibliography of 2018 Comparative Constitutional Law Books and Articles.

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. The Younger Comparativists Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law welcomes submissions for its 8^th Global Conference which will be held in Montreal on May 10-11, 2019. Abstracts of between 500 and 740 words must be submitted by January 31, 2019.
2. LUISS Guido Carli University is hosting a workshop on “Re-Conceptualizing Authority and Legitimacy in the EU: New Architectures and Procedures to Reconnect the Union with its Citizens” on 1 February 2019 (9h00-17h30) in the framework of the Horizon 2020 ProjectRECONNECT. A detailed program is available here.
3. The University of Melbourne welcomes contributions for the “Constitutional Resilience in South Asia” workshop on December 2019, 5-7. Abstracts proposals of no more than 1000 words, alongside a CV and a relevant bibliography should be submitted within the end of April 2019.
4. The American Constitution Society is proud to host the Constance Baker Motley Writing Competition, open to law students. Papers should be submitted within February 10, 2019.
5. The American Constitution Society is proud to host the Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition on Regulatory and Administrative Law, open to lawyers and law students. Papers should be submitted within February 3, 2019.
6. The European University Institute (Florence, Italy) welcomes contributions for a one-day Doctoral Forum on International Law. The forum will be held on June 10, 2019. PhD candidates who would like to participate shall submit abstracts of maximum 600 words by February 15, 2019.
7. Odile Ammann convenes a workshop on “Lobbying and Domestic Lawmaking Processes: Do Lobbies Strengthen or Undermine Dignity, Democracy and Diversity?” at the 29th World Congress of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland, to be held on July 7-13, 2019. Researchers interested in participating in this workshop can send a short abstract to odile.ammann@rwi.uzh.ch by March 1, 2019.
8. The IACL Research Group on “Algorithmic State, Society and Market – Constitutional Dimensions” welcomes submissions for its inaugural conference on “Constitutional Challenges in the Algorithmic Society” to be held in Florence (Italy) on May 9-11, 2019. Abstracts of no more than 800 words should be submitted by February 15, 2019.

Elsewhere Online

1. G. Delledonne, Rationalizing political representation within the European Parliament, the Italian Constitutional Court rules on the threshold for the European elections, Verfassungsblog
2. J. Simson Caird, Brexit and the Speaker of the House of Commons: Do the Ends Justify the Means?, Verfassungsblog
3. A. Weale, Could an “indicative vote” break the Brexit logjam?, The Constitution Unit
4. A. Deb, Privacy International: A Matter of Constitutional Logic and Judicial Trust?, UK Constitutional Law Association
5. P. Allott, The Problem of Direct Democracy: Brexit and the Tyranny of the Majority, UK Constitutional Law Association
6. D. Hovell, Reforming the World in Our Own Image: A Critique of Liberal Constitutionalism, EJIL: Talk!
7. M. Donaldson, International Organizations and the Making of Modern Legal Histories, EJIL: Talk!
8. J.W. Lucas, The Anti-Constitutional Legal Campaign against Gerrymandering Reaches the Supreme Court, National Review