What’s New in Public Law

–Mohamed Abdelaal, Alexandria University (Egypt)

In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in comparative 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 comparative public law blogosphere.

To submit relevant developments for our weekly feature on “What’s New in Comparative Public Law,” please email contact.iconnect@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The German Constitutional Court ruled that the Outright Monetary Transactions Programme (OMT) of the European Central Bank is constitutional.
2. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of race-based admissions at the University of Texas.
3. Egypt’s highest administrative court voided an executive decision to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.
4. The Constitutional Court of Malta granted bail to a man who has been held in preventive custody since January, pending definitive judgement on his extradition to Lithuania.
5. Indonesia’s Constitutional Court called on President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to immediately sign the bill on a revision to the 2015 Regional Elections Law that was approved by the House of Representative earlier this month.

In the News

1. The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a historic referendum that forced the country’s prime minister to step down.
2. Japan dropped the minimum voting age to 18.
3. The Tunisian Parliament passed a bill to increase women representation in local self-government across the country.
4. Human Rights Watch stated that Thailand’s junta has forcibly blocked opposition efforts to monitor the nationwide referendum on the new constitution on August 7.
5. Bahrain revoked the citizenship of the spiritual leader of the kingdom’s Shi’ite Muslim majority.

New Scholarship

1. Iza R. Hussin, The Politics of Islamic Law (2016) (comparing India, Malaya, and Egypt during the British colonial period in order to trace the making and transformation of the contemporary category of “Islamic law”)
2. Pietro Faraguna, Taking Constitutional Identities Away from Courts, 41 Brooklyn Journal of International Law (2016) (exploring a non-judicial approach for the protection of national constitutional identities in the European Union)
3. Scott Newton, The Constitutional Systems of the Independent Central Asian States: A Contextual Analysis (2016) (providing a comparative constitutional analysis of the Kyrgyz Republic and Republics of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in their cultural, historical, political, economic and social context)
4. Michael Pal, Electoral Management Bodies as a Fourth Branch of Government, Review of Constitutional Studies (forthcoming 2016) (examining the nature of the decision to confer constitutional status on Electoral Management Bodies)
5. Mira Burri, The World Trade Organization as an Actor in Global Internet Governance, in The Institutions of Global Internet Governance, William J. Drake and Mira Burri, eds. (forthcoming 2016) (thematizing the problem of interfacing different policy domains that may come with very different objectives, actors, regulatory histories and cultures, such as notably those of trade and Internet governance, as well as the challenge of updating legal frameworks in the face of new technological developments)
6. Elizabeth Howell, Short Selling Restrictions in the EU and the US: A Comparative Analysis, Journal of Corporate Law Studies (forthcoming 2016) (providing an analysis on the choices made in both jurisdictions concerning short selling restrictions and concluding that some similarities exist, but divergences are also evident, not least in the absence of constraints on sovereign debt in the U.S.)
7. Robert Black, Comparative Law in the Modalities of Constitutional Argument, 38 North Carolina Central Law Review 1 (2015) (using the system of modalities of constitutional argument to argue that there is no unitary answer to that question)
8. David Hodas, The Laws of Science, Constitutional Law, and the Rule of Law, 22 Widener Law Review (2015) (answering the question of whether the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution require lawmakers and judges to adhere to the fundamental laws of science)
9. John O. Haley, Law’s Political Foundations, Rivers, Rifles, Race, and Religion (forthcoming) (explaining the development of the two basic systems of public and private law and their historical transformations)

Call for Papers

1. The Faculty of Law and the Centre for European Studies at Lund University in cooperation with the Swedish Network for European Legal Studies invite submissions for a half day conference under the theme of “An Administrative Procedure Act for the EU? The ReNEUAL Model Rules on EU Administrative Procedure – Nordic Perspectives” to be held on November 24, 2016.
2. The University of Turin invites interested researchers to apply for a three-day seminar “Conversations with Margit Cohn” on comparative perspectives to constitutional adjudication to be held on September 19-21, 2016. The deadline for applications is July 18, 2016.
3. Faulkner Law Review at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law at Faulkner University invites proposals for its 5th Annual Law Review Symposium, “The Role of the Judge in the Anglo-American Tradition,” to be held on September 22-23, 2016.
4. The American Society of International Law has issued a call for papers for its 2016 Research Forum, to be held on November 11-12, 2016, at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle, Washington.
5. The NUI Galway Legal and Political Theory Workshop Series is seeking submissions from presenters for the academic year 2016-2017. The workshop will meet every other Friday during academic terms from 12:30h – 14:30h. If you are interested in presenting a paper please send an abstract of approximately 750 words and a short bio to: lptheory@nuigalway.ie.
6. McGill University’s Faculty of Law invites essay submissions to the Baxter Family Competition on Federalism. Essays related to aspects of federal theory or practice, which examine the past, present and future of Canadian federalism from comparative angles are particularly encouraged. The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2016.
7. East European Journal of Society and Politics(Intersections) issued a call for papers on “Human rights in the EU’s conditionality policy towards enlargement countries in the Western Balkans.” The deadline for abstracts is July 15, 2016.
8. DPCE Association – “Associazione di Diritto Pubblico Comparato ed Europeo” is pleased to announce its 4th Biennial meeting on Legal comparison and methodology: experiences and approaches, to be held on October 20-21, 2016 at the University of Salento, in Lecce (Italy).

Elsewhere Online

1. Mark Elliott, Brexit: Legally and Constitutionally, What Now?, Public Law for Everyone
2. Mark E. Rosen, After the South China Sea Arbitration, The Diplomat
3. Joris Larik and Aaron Matta, Brexit, Identity, and the Rise of the Euro-Celts, Verfassungsblog
4. Francesco Clementi, Italian constitutional reforms: Towards a stable and efficient government, ConstitutionNet
5. Colin P.A. Jones, Japan’s koseki system: dull, uncaring but terribly efficient, The Japan Times
6. Referendums that shaped the world as we know it, ZNews