What’s New in Public Law

–Mohamed Abdelaal, Assistant Professor, Alexandria University Faculty 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. Moldova’s Constitutional Court has approved the results of last month’s general election.
2. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a case regarding freedom of speech and the government’s right not to trademark.
3. The Jamaican Constitutional Court will hear a claim challenging the constitutionality of the state of emergency.
4. The Turkish Constitutional Court ruled that in certain cases requiring the applicant to pay certain fines or tenders violates the right of access to court.
5. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine found an article of the penal code to be unconstitutional.

In the News

1. The Malaysian cabinet has agreed to amend the constitution.
2. The Russian Duma has passed a series of bills outlawing spreading fake news and disrespecting authorities.
3. In Iran, a human rights lawyer has been sentenced to 38 years in prison for spreading news against the state and insulting the leader.
4. The Colombian President has objected to a War Crimes Tribunal Bill.
5. The Trump Administration asks the Supreme Court to decide whether the Constitution lets the government ask whether people are American citizens.
6. Algerian President calls for a national conference to draft a new constitution.
7. The ruling party in Zimbabwe will initiate a constitutional amendment to maintain quota for women in parliament.

New Scholarship

1. Asli U. Bali and Hanna Lerner, Religion and Constitution Making in Comparative Perspective, in David Landau and Hanna Lerner (eds), Handbook on Comparative Constitution Making (Edward Elgar, 2019 forthcoming) (reviewing some of the key questions that arise in constitution-writing concerning the relationship of state and religion, including in religiously-divided societies)
2. Brice Dickson, The Irish Supreme Court: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2019) (providing a scholarly and readable account of the Supreme Court of Ireland’s jurisprudence from its foundation in 1924 to the present day)
3. Domenico Giannino and Antonio Manzoni, The commons: an innovative basis for transnational environmental law in the era of Anthropocene?, 11 Perspectives on Federalism (2019) (introducing a theoretical-legal basis for the recent innovative decisions by the Colombian Supreme Court of Justice and by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the issue of environmental justice)
4. Hakeem Yusuf and Tanzil Chowdhury, The Persistence of Colonial Constitutionalism in British Overseas Territories, 8 Global Constitutionalism (2019) (arguing that despite the UK Government’s exaltations of self-determination of its Overseas Territories, provisions of colonial governance persist in their constitutions)
5. Thomas Kadri and Kate Klonick, Facebook v. Sullivan: Building Constitutional Law for Online Speech (2019) (discussing how disputes about harmful speech are to be adjudicated and the boundaries of free speech in online platforms)
6. Robert F. Nagel, Conservatism and Constitutionalism in the United States, U of Colorado Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 19-5 (2019) (examining a range of ideas about what conservatism is and rejects the possibility that most of these can be expected to discipline the temptation to impose personal moral visions and aspirations)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Indian Journal of Tax Law (IJTL) calls for submissions of manuscripts on all areas of taxation of contemporary relevance for its new volume.
2. Visakha Journal of Environmental Law (VJEL) invites paper submissions for its new volume.
3. Gonzaga University School of Law‘s Journal of International Law welcomes submissions for its 2019 upcoming symposium under the theme of “The Future of Law in the Information Age” to be held on April 4, 2019.
4. The African Review of Economics and Finance (AREF) calls attention to the 2019 annual conference, which will be hosted at Wits Business School in Johannesburg from 29 to 30 August 2019.
5. George Washington University Law School will be hosting the second Junior Intellectual Property Scholars Association (JIPSA) workshop of 2019! The event will take place May 28-29, 2019.
6. The Faculty of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong will host a Symposium on “Global Constitutionalism: Asia-Pacific Perspectives” on 28-29 Mar 2019.
7. The Leuven Centre for Public Law (LCPL) and RIPPLE (Research in Political Philosophy Leuven) are inviting applications for the conference “Democratic renewal in times of polarization. The case of Belgium” which will be held in Leuven on 19-20 September 2019.

Elsewhere online

1. Lyle Denniston, How far is ERA from being put in the Constitution?, Constitution Center
2. Irma Johanna, Global tax governance in the G20 and the OECD: What can be done?, Leiden Law Blog
3. Grace Yang, China’s New Gender Employment Discrimination Laws: Just to be Perfectly Clear, China Law Blog
4. Could Germany’s digital education initiative threaten states’ rights?, Deuchewelle
5. Richard H. Pildes, How the Supreme Court weakened Congress on emergency declarations, The Washington Post
6. Sir Paul Lever, The EU is Germany writ large, Spiked