What’s New in Public Law

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—Maja Sahadžić, Research Fellow, University of Antwerp

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 Azerbaijan adopted an appeal to the President on dissolving the parliament and holding early elections.
2. The Constitutional Court of Germany upheld the right of a man convicted of murder to have his name removed from the internet.
3. The Supreme Court of India put on hold the elections for local bodies in nine new districts of Tamil Nadu for complying with legal formalities.
4. The Constitutional Court of Turkey ruled the freedom of expression of a renowned sculptor, whose monument was destroyed, had been violated.
5. The Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear the appeal of an ex-Nazi death squad member to restore his Canadian citizenship.
6. The Constitutional Tribunal of Peru approved a request to free the opposition leader Keiko Fujimori from preliminary detention while she is investigated for alleged corruption.
7. The Constitutional Court of Zambia dismissed the petition on Bill 10 for being prematurely before the Court and lack of merit.
8. The Constitutional Court of Malawi concluded hearing of the case of the presidential election.

In the News

1. The Maldivian parliament removed justice from the Supreme Court completing an overhaul of the court.
2. The Iraqi parliament accepted the resignation of the Iraqi prime minister.
3. The president of the United States of America signed into law a bill that supports pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
4. The Indonesian president rejected proposals to amend the constitution to end direct elections for the presidency.
5. The International Criminal Court received a request to investigate human rights crimes in Brazil.
6. The European Court of Justice ruled that the term “Balsamico” is not a food designation protected under the European Union’s geographical food designation rules.
7. The Albanian parliament elected prosecutor general as part of judicial reforms sought by the West intended to kick out corrupt judges.
8. The president of Slovakia asked the Constitutional Court to strike down a ban on publishing opinion polls ahead of elections.

New Scholarship

1. Giuseppe Martinico and Giorgio Repetto, Fundamental Rights and Constitutional Duels in Europe: An Italian Perspective on Case 269/2017 of the Italian Constitutional Court and Its Aftermath, European Constitutional Law Review (2019) (offering an updated and critical view on the latest developments of judicial dialogue in Europe).
2. Saskia Ruth-Lovell and Maria Spirova (eds.), Clientelism and Democratic Representation in Comparative Perspective (2019) (developing a theoretical framework to study the consequences of clientelism for democratic representation).
3. Felipe de Mendonça Lope, Dissent Aversion and Sequential Voting in the Brazilian Supreme Court, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (2019) (studying evidence of dissent aversion in the Brazilian Supreme Court).
4. Hassan Jabareen, The Paradigm of Originalism: Israeli Constitutional Law and Legal Thought, Israel Law Review (2019) (challenging the main claims about originalism in American legal thought).
5. Joshua C. Gellers and Chris Jeffords, Environmental rights in the Asia Pacific region: taking stock and assessing impacts, Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law (2019) (statistically analyzing the impact of environmental rights in the Asia Pacific and finding strong improvements in ecosystem vitality and weak reductions in measures of environmental health, along with inter-regional differences).
6. Anne Twomey (ed.) and William Pitt Cobbett, The Constitution and Government of Australia 1788-1919 (2019) (publishing for the first time a century-old manuscript that provides a detailed analysis of the Australian Constitution as interpreted by the first High Court of Australia).
7. Petra Ahrens and Lise Rolandsen Agustín (eds.), Gendering the European Parliament (2019) (analyzing the European Parliament by studying its gender perspective and addressing changes and continuities).
8. Joshua C. Gellers and Chris Jeffords, Environmental rights in the Asia Pacific region: taking stock and assessing impacts, Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law (2019) (using statistical techniques in order to determine what, if any, correlation exists between environmental rights and environmental performance in the Asia Pacific region).
9. Joshua Braver, The Myth of Recurrent Court-Packing (2019) (arguing that although the U.S. Supreme Court’s size has changed seven times, court-packing would nearly, if not completely, novel in American history)

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. The Jean Monnet Center at NYU School of Law is currently accepting applications for its Emile Noël Fellowship Program for AY 2020/21. Limited number of fellowships are available. The deadline is January 15, 2020.  
2. The Centre for International and Public Law at the Australian National University organizes the ANU Law 60th Anniversary Conference: Public Law and Inequality in Canberra on 8-9 December 2020. The deadline for submissions is 2 March 2020.
3. The University of Oslo welcomes submissions for the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies – Europe 2020 in Oslo on 11-12 June 2020. The deadline for submissions is 15 February 2020.
4. The Dublin Law and Politics Review invite abstracts for the Annual Research Conference on the Rule of Law and Populism and Sustainable Finance in Dublin on 24-25 March 2020. The deadline for abstracts is 20 January 2020.
5. The Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich invites applications for a postdoctoral position in Political Institutions and European Politics. The deadline for applications is 15 January 2020.
6. Central European University announces the ninth annual European Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Social Sciences and Humanities. The deadline for applications is 31 January 2020.
7. European Consortium for Political Research organizes the 9th Winter School in Methods and Techniques in Bamberg on 14-21 February 2020. The deadline for applications is 12 December 2019.
8. The Stockholm Center for International Law and Justice welcomes applications for the 6th Annual Conference of the European Society of International Law in Stockholm on 10-12 September 2020. The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2020.

Elsewhere Online

1. Martina Trettel, What is going on with Bougainville (the island in the Pacific Ocean, not the flower)?, Eureka!.
2. Simon Drugda, Behaviour of the Far-Right in the Slovak Parliament: Constitutional Amendment as a PR Tool, BRIDGE
3. Gabriel Toggenburg, The Charter of Fundamental Rights: ‘All EU-r rights’ in 54 provisions, Eureka!.
4. Zemelak Ayitenew Ayele, EU-Ethiopia: Democratising Ethiopia Together, too?, Eureka!.
5. Janet McLean, Attorney-General v Taylor: An Example of the Cautious, Incremental and ‘Common Law’ Approach to Constitutional Change in New Zealand, IACL-AIDC BLOG
6. Jaakko Husa, ‘One Country, Two Systems’ – Learning from the Past, IACL-AIDC BLOG
7. Moussa Diop, Senegal and its national political dialogue in a time of inclusive democracy, ConstitutionNet.
8. Bal Kama, Bougainville’s Independence Referendum and Constitutional Implications for Papua New Guinea, ConstitutionNet.
9. Adam Perry, Enforcing Principles, Enforcing Conventions, UK Constitutional Law Association.
10. Ulrike Elteste, Kristof Van Quathem, and Nicholas Shepherd, German Constitutional Court Reshapes “Right to be Forgotten” and Expands Its Oversight of Human Rights Violations, Lexology.
11. Linda Greenhouse, Gunfight at the Supreme Court, The New York Times.
12. Claire Zalla, Is water the key to peace between Palestine and Israel?, Yale Macmillan Center.
13. İlayda Eskitaşçıoğlu, Access to Menstrual Products is a Constitutional Right. Period., Verfassungsblog.
14. Alice Donald, Time for Strasbourg to Open its Doors to Turkey’s Purged Public Servants, Verfassungsblog.
15. Justin Borg-Barthet, A Captured State, Why the EU has to Intervene Quickly in the Rule of Law Crisis in Malta, Verfassungsblog.