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 Constitutional Court of Indonesia dismissed the appeal of the opposition leader against President Joko Widodo’s win in April elections.
2. The Constitutional Court of Turkey held that the year-long detention of reporter Deniz Yücel was unlawful.
3. The US Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals law.
4. The US Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering is a political question out of the reach of federal courts.
5. The Constitutional Court of Kosovo ruled that the mandate and the competences of the team tasked with negotiating with Serbia are unconstitutional.
6. The US Supreme Court held 5-4 that a federal law imposing longer prison sentences for crimes committed using firearms is vague, hence unconstitutional.

In the News

1. The six judges of the Moldova Constitutional Court resigned after accusations of political bias.
2. The Irish Health Minister approved a new programme that will let people access medical cannabis on a limited basis.
3. The Democratic party held the first two debates of the 2020 primaries for the presidential elections.
4. The EU and Mercosur reached a political agreement for a new trade deal.
5. Spain’s Acting Prime Minister will set a date for the confirmation vote.
6. The UK Parliament passed legislation setting a goal for zero carbon emission by 2050.
7. The leader of the Danish Social Democrats has been chosen to lead the Danish Government.

New Scholarship

1. M. De Visser and B. Ngoc Son, Glocalised constitution-making in the twenty-first century: Evidence from Asia, 8 Global Constitutionalism (2019) (developing an analytical framework to study the interplay between global pressures and domestic interests in constitution-making and illustrating its application with the help of a selected recent Asian case studies).
2. J. Sapiano, Peace Settlements and Human Rights, iCourts Working Paper Series No. 161 (2019) (showing, through the help of three case studies, how the tension between peace and human rights in transitional contexts can be conducted to a resolution by the work of courts).
3. S. Baer, The Rule of – and not by any – Law. On Constitutionalism, 71 Current Legal Problems (2019) (offering an analysis on the recent attacks on the rule of law by a plurality of actors and arguing for a defense of the basis of constitutionalism).
4. B. Fassbender, The state’s unabandoned claim to be the center of the legal universe, 16 International Journal of Constitutional Law (2019) (analyzing how, even if states are not the only actors within the international legal order, the central position of the state is still manifesting itself in a variety of relationships).
5. D. Fox, Births Rights and Wrongs. How Medicine and Technology are Remaking Reproduction and the Law (2019) (identifying core reproductive interests in pregnancy and parenthood, and lifting the curtain on reproductive negligence).
6. L. Rothstein, Would the ADA Pass Today?: Disability Rights in an Age of Partisan Polarization, 12 St. Louis U. J. Health L. & Pol’y (2019) (recounting the story behind the passage of the ADA and providing  a comprehensive analysis on its diminished impact due to administrative agency actions).
7. S. Hargreaves, Grinding down the Edges of the Free Expression Right in Hong Kong, 44 Brooklyn Journal of International Law (2019) (arguing that the policies adopted by the Government of Hong Kong against unwelcome political speech are unconstitutional and counterproductive).
8. R. Eksteen, The Role of the Highest Courts of the United States of America and South Africa, and the European Court of Justice in Foreign Affairs (2019) (providing an intensive and well documented examination of the judiciary’s role in foreign affairs).
9. S. Meijer, H. Annison and A. O’Loughlin (eds.), Fundamental Rights and Legal Consequences of Criminal Conviction (2019) (providing a comprehensive analysis of the restrictions suffered by convicted offenders and discussing whether their fundamental rights are sufficiently protected).
10.  J.J. Bosland, Restraining “Extraneous” Prejudicial Publicity: Victoria and New South Wales Compared, 41 University of New South Wales Law Journal (2019) (exploring the powers available to Victoria and New South Wales courts to restrain the publication of “extraneous” prejudicial material).

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. The Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa (Italy) invites scholars to apply for a Visiting Professorship starting between December 2019 and December 2020. Applications should be submitted by September 27, 2019.
2. The IACL (International Association of Constitutional Law) is glad to announce the constitution of a new research group on “Gender and Constitutions”.
3. The UC Berkeley, the University of Bologna (Italy) and the University of Parma (Italy) are inviting scholars to attend the “Italian-American Dialogues on Constitutionalism in the 21^st Century” on “Global Law vs National Law?” that will be held on October 10, 2019 in Bologna and on October 11, 2019 in Parma.
4. The Italian Chapter of the International Society of Public Law (ICON•S) welcomes submissions for its conference on “New Technologies and the Future of Public Law” that will be held in Florence on November 22-23, 2019. Panels and papers proposals must be submitted by July 10, 2019.
5. TConsult and Taylor’s Law School welcome submissions for the “International Conference on the Future of Law and Legal Practice” that will be held in Selangor (Malaysia) on October 15-16, 2019. Abstracts of no more than 500 words must be submitted by July 31, 2019.
6. The University of Nairobi, School of Law welcomes submissions for the “African Network of Constitutional Lawyers Biennial Conference” on “The Paradox of Constitutionalism in Africa: Reflecting on 10 Years of the Kenyan Constitution” that will be held on August, 26-27-28, 2020. Abstracts of no more than 500 words must be submitted by July 31, 2019.

Elsewhere Online

1. Democratic Decay & Renewal (DEM-DEC), Global Research Update on democratic decay and renewal of June 2019, DEM-DEC
2. David R. Cameron, European Council still at odds over next Commission president and other EU leaders, Yale Macmillan Center
3. S. Lénárd, Technology is constantly changing the degree of privacy that people may expect, and the courts in response change constitutional rules – conversation with Orin Kerr, Professor of Law, precedens.mandiner
4. M. Kuo, Hong Kong’s Extradition Bill and Taiwan’s Sovereignty Dilemma, The Diplomat
5. C. Chan, Demise of “One Country, Two Systems”?, Verfassungsblog
6. M. Gordon, Privacy International, Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Synthetic Constitution, UK Constitutional Law Association
7. S. Aydin-Düzgit, T.G. Daly, K. Godfrey, S.I. Lindberg, A. Lührmann, T. Petrova and R. Youngs, Post-Cold War Democratic Declines: The third Wave of Autocratization, Carnegie Europe
8. M. Rodriguez Ferrere, A. Geddis, The New Zealand Court of Appeal on Extradition to the PRC, UK Constitutional Law Association
9. C. Murdoch, W. Jordash, Clarifying the Contours of the Crime of Starvation, EJIL: Talk!
10. R. Thwaites, “Disallegient conduct” and citizenship stripping: Recent Australian developments, Blog of the IACL, AIDC
11. R. Ziegler, Absent-Present Membership? EU Citizens in Brexit Britain, Blog of the IACL, AIDC