What’s New in Public Law

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the federal government need not submit the NSA Selector Lists to the Bundestag Committee of Inquiry into NSA Activities.
2. South Africa’s Constitutional Court ruled that racism cannot be overlooked in South Africa.
3. The Council for the Advancement of the Constitution sought to join the Democratic Alliance court challenge to South Africa’s withdrawal from ICC.
4. The UK Supreme Court ruled the Scotland and Wales can intervene in Brexit lawsuit.
5. Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled against deportation of Syrian and Russian nationals.

In the News

1. In Ukraine, a new bill on Constitutional Court has been submitted to Parliament.
2. In Moldova, a new bill was proposed to reform the Constitutional Court.
3. In South Korea, the opposition has vowed to impeach the President.
4. The UK Parliament passed a controversial mass surveillance law.
5. Slovenia amended its constitution to make access to drinkable water a fundamental right for all citizens and stop it being commercialized.
6. Sri Lanka’s Constitution will be subject to a popular referendum.

New Scholarship

1. Bui Ngoc Son and Pip Nicholson, Activism and Popular Constitutionalism in Contemporary Vietnam, Law & Social Inquiry (2016) (analysing activism in Vietnam, focusing on the lodging of Petition 72 with the Constitutional Amendment Drafting Commission in 2013, and the resulting responses; concluding that this activism was pivotal in advocating for new constitutional norms, evidencing popular constitutionalism in Vietnam)
2. Bui Ngoc Son, Confucian Constitutionalism in East Asia (2016) (examining detailed aspects of Confucianism and the workings of constitutions in practice)
3. Stefanus Hendrianto, The Puzzle of Judicial Communication in Indonesia: The Media, the Court and the Chief Justice, in Richard Davis and David Taras (eds.), Justice and Journalists: The Global Perspective (forthcoming 2016) (exploring the relationship between the media and the Indonesian Constitutional Court)
4. Benjamin Schonthal, Buddhism, Politics and the Limits of Law: The Pyrrhic Constitutionalism of Sri Lanka (2016) (providing an extended study of the legal regulation of religion in Sri Lanka as well as an analysis of the intersections of Buddhism and contemporary constitutional law) (For a 20% Discount, use the code SCHONTHAL2016)
5. Rajeev Kadambi, Ambedkar’s Framing of the ‘Political’ within Ethical Practice (2016) (explaining Ambedkar’s recasting of pure politics and the political within an ethical framework as well as Ambedkar’s ethos of radical action grounded in the limitation of the state, law and institutional structures to transform society)
6. Daniel E. Walters, The Judicial Role in Constraining Presidential Nonenforcement Discretion: The Virtues of an APA Approach, 164 University of Pennsylvania Law Review (2016) (arguing that courts still can and do constrain presidential nonenforcement discretion, and that they are far better situated to do so when they operate under the rubric of conventional administrative law)
7. Eugene D. Mazo, Rethinking Presidential Eligibility, Fordham Law Review (forthcoming) (examining how a challenge to a candidate’s eligibility impacts a presidential campaign)
8. Steven L. Schwarcz, Shadow Banking and Regulation in China and Other Developing Countries, Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series (2016) (arguing that a regulatory balance is needed to help protect financial stability while preserving shadow banking as an important channel of alternative funding)
9. Timothy K. Kuhner, The Corruption of Liberal and Social Democracies, 84 Fordham Law Review (2016) (focusing on plutocracy, the form of corruption most affecting the United States at present)
10. International IDEA, Annual Review of Constitution-Building Processes: 2015 (providing a retrospective of constitutional transitions around the world, the issues that drive them, and their implications for national and international politics; identifying regional commonalities that not only tie together the processes of constitutional reform taking place in neighbouring countries, but also represent relevant contextual aspects that help explain the forces and mechanisms driving constitutional change in each region)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Younger Comparativists Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law (YCC) is pleased to invite submissions for the Phanor J. Eder LL.B./J.D. Prize in Comparative Law, in connection with its Sixth Annual Conference, to be held on April 28-29, 2017, at Koç University Law School in Istanbul, Turkey. Papers will be accepted on any subject in public or private comparative law from students currently enrolled in a J.D. or LL.B. program. To submit an entry, students should send an email to phanorjederprize@gmail.com. The deadline for submission is January 16, 2017. The winning author(s) will be invited to present their paper at the YCC’s Annual Conference. The winner(s) will receive a modest stipend furnished by LexisNexis to help defray the costs of attendance.
2. Organizers have issued a call for submissions for a conference taking place in the new School of Law building at Queen’s University Belfast on Friday, May 19, 2017. The conference’s theme is “The Concept of Fairness in Law-Making.”
3. The European Society of International Law Interest Group on International Legal Theory Workshop welcomes submissions for its 13th ESIL Annual Conference: “Global Public Goods, Global Commons and Fundamental Values: The Responses of International to be held on September 7-9, 2017 in Naples.
4. The Transnational Law and Justice Network Faculty of Law, University of Windsor, Canada invites abstracts for the Transnational Criminal Law in the Americas Conference on May 4-5, 2017.
5. The issue Nº 11 (2016) of the Journal of Law & Religion (Revista Derecho y Religión) has been published and can be ordered directly from the publishing house.

Elsewhere Online

1. Colin P.A. Jones, So-called egalitarian Japan is still honor-bound, The Japan Times
2. John Conelly and Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz, Who are Today’s Polish Traitors? Of Politics of Paranoia and Resentment and Missed Lessons from the Past, Verfassungsblog
3. Ezra Claymore, “The integrity of the SA Government has been restored once again”, The South African
4. Louis Nelson, Trump’s Muslim registry wouldn’t be illegal, constitutional law experts say, Politico
5. Mattia Guidi, Why Italians should support Renzi’s constitutional reform, European Politics and Policy Blog
6. Beny Gideon Mabor, South Sudan must restart constitutional reform process, ConstitutionNet