What’s New in Public Law

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—Bárbara da Rosa Lazarotto, Master Student at the University of Minho – Portugal; Researcher at the International Legal Research Group on Human Rights and Technology of the European Law Students Association – ELSA.

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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 iconnecteditors@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany released a verdict on climate change, obliging the government to define emission-reduction targets.
2. The Supreme Constitutional Court of Syria approved the eligibility of three candidates for the presidential run.
3. The Supreme Court of India ruled that states cannot create a parallel regime regulating the real estate industry, and found the West Bengal Housing Industry Regulation Act unconstitutional.
4. The Constitutional Court of Ecuador found two articles of the Penal Code that criminalized abortion even in cases of rape unconstitutional.
5. The Constitutional Court of Belarus found that the Personal Data Protection Law complies with the Constitution.
6. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine launched a new online source called Library of Constitutional Law, which contains research publications and case law. 

In the News

1. The newly elected Legislative Assembly of El Salvador removes all the judges of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, and Attorney General Raul Melara.
2. The United Kingdom holds multiple elections, including elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd, local councils, and other elected offices.
3. Colombia is facing a surge of protests with 24 dead and hundreds of injured in a week of clashes between protesters and the police.
4. Tension de-escalated between France and the UK due to the post-Brexit fishing rights in the Channel Islands after days of tension when France and the UK deployed patrol boats to the area.

New Scholarship

1. Nausica Palazzo, ‘Judicial Activism’ in Europe: Not a Neat and Clean Fit, 14 ICL-Vienna Journal on International Constitutional Law 4 (2021) (explaining wh the concept of judicial activism might not easily apply to the decision-making of European constitutional courts)
2. Swati Jhaveri and Michael Ramsden (eds), Judicial Review of Administrative Action Across the Common Law World: Origins and Adaptation (2021) (comparatively examining common law models of administrative law)
3. Ian Loveland, British and Canadian Public Law in Comparative Perspective (2021) (examining current human rights controversies in UK law in the light of the way such matters are dealt with in Canada)
4. Mariolina, Eliantonio, Emilia Korkea-aho, and Oana Stefan (eds), EU Soft Law in the Member States: Theoretical findings and Empirical Evidence (2021) (analyzing the impact that non-legally binding material produced by EU institutions has on national courts and administration)
5. Li-ann Thio and Jaclyn L Neo (eds), Religious Offences in Common Law Asia: Colonia, Legacies, Constitutional Rights and Contemporary Practice (2021) (providing a comparative analysis of how religious penal clauses have been developed and employed within Asia common law states and their impacts on constitutional rights)
6. Victoria Miyandazi, Equality in Kenya’s 2010 Constitution: Understanding the competing and interrelated conceptions (2021) (examining the many ways diverse equality guarantees clash or are interrelated)
7. Tanya Bagashka and Lydia Brashear Tiede, The Influence of Procurator Generals in Constitutional Review: The Case of Bulgaria, 8 Journal of Law and Courts 1 (2021) (examinin how the decisio to strike down laws in Bulgaria align with political preferences of judges, or the actors who appointed them to office as well as iterests of the parties expressed in amicus briefs)
8. Maria Antonia Tigre, COVID-19, and Amazonia: Rights-based approaches for the pandemic response, Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law – RECIEL (2021) (examining the link between COVID‐19 and environmental protection in Amazonia from a rights‐based perspective)
9. Maria Antonia Tigre and Natalia Urzola, The 2017 Inter-American Court’s Advisory Opinion: changing the paradigm for international environmental law in the Anthropocene, 12 Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 1 (2021) (examining an advisory opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that recognized extraterritorial jurisdiction for transboundary environmental harm, right to a healty environment, and state responsibility for environmental damage)
10. Tan Kian Leong and Shukri Shahizam, O’ Bitter Pill to Swallow: Separating Ratio from Dicta in Maria Chin Abdullah  (2021) (examining the the Malaysian Federal Court’s decision in Maria Chin Abdullah v DG of Immigration and the basic strcuture doctrine)
11. Lorne Neudorf, COVID-19 in the Apex Courts of India and Australia: Judicial Roles and Constitutional Cultures (forthcoming 2021) (examining and comparing the COVID-related jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of India and the High Court of Australia)
12. David Pozen & Thomas P. Schmidt, The Puzzles and Possibilities of Article V, Columbia Law Review (forthcoming 2021) (calling into question the dominant view that “Article V is clear in statement and in meaning, contains no ambiguity, and calls for no resort to rules of construction” and examining the implications of this important revelation)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The ICON-S-IL Conference will be held on zoon on May 25 at 6:30 PM (Israel Time) / 11:30 AM (EST). It will reflect on popular sovereignty, constituent power, territory, and social imagination concerning the Israeli context and beyond. The Conference will be held in English, all participants from all around the world are invited to attend. For registration click here.
2. The Younger Comparatists Committee – YCC of the American Society of Comparative Law – ASCL invites submissions for its Tenth Annual Conference to be held on October 21 and 23, 2021. The deadline for submissions is July 10th, 2021. 
3. The C4AI invites students and professionals to submit papers for the International Seminar on Artificial Intelligence: Democracy and Social Impacts. The deadline for submissions is June 22nd, 2021. 
4. The Annual Junior Faculty Forum for International Law announces the 10th Forum hosted by the South African Research Chair on International Constitutional Law that will take place on December 13, 14 &15, 2021. Applicants are invited to submit a proposed research presentation to the Forum. 
5. Droit Public Comparé – Comparative Public Law (DPC-CPL) invites those that are interested to submit papers to the biannual peer-reviewed journal dedicated to Comparative Public Law. Articles can be written in English or French, and will be published in spring and autumn, 2022.
6. Calls are open for the Human Rights Yearbook by the Human Rights Centre of the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile until 15 May 2021. 
7. Calls are open for the Human Rights Directory of 2021 held by the Instituto de Derechos Humanos Ignacio Ellacuría, SJ. de la Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla. Deadline for submission is August 6, 2021.
8. The U.S Feminist Judgements Project announces its 2021 Summer Feminist Legal Theories Series and it is open for presenters, papers, and participants. The deadline is May 28, 2021.
9. The Jurisprudence Department of the University of Torino opens a call for papers for the convention that celebrates the 60th anniversary of the European Social Charter. The deadline for submission is August 2, 2021.

Elsewhere Online

1. Marew Abebe Salemot, Draft Criminal Procedure and Evidence Law Contradicts the Ethiopian Constitution and Federal Architecture, IACL-IADC Blog
2. Bat-Orgil Altankhuyag, The Price of Limiting Power: Why Constitutional Democracy in Mongolia is in Danger, Verfassungsblog
3. Satang Nabaneh, The Use of Emergency Powers in Response to COVID-19 in The Gambia, Verfassungsblog
4. Pierre de Vos, Why is the JSC irrationally refusing to recommend the suspension of Judge President Hlophe?, Constitutionally Speaking