What’s New in Public Law

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–Maja Sahadžić, Visiting Professor and Research Fellow (University of Antwerp) and Senior Research Fellow (Law Institute in Sarajevo)

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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 Supreme Court of the US ruled that Puerto Ricans do not have the same access to the welfare program.
2. The Supreme Court of South Korea overturned the military convictions of two gay soldiers.
3. The Supreme Court of India ruled that failure to provide an airbag system should be subject to punitive damages.
4. The Supreme Court of India ordered twice a halt to the demolition of houses and shops in the Jahangirpuri area.
5. The Constitutional Court of Taiwan declared unconstitutional a legal provision on Indigenous status.
6. The Constitutional Court of Turkey ruled that compulsory religion courses violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

In the News

1. Congresswomen in Peru issued a constitutional complaint against three judges of the Constitutional Court.
2. The Lithuanian parliament amended the Constitution to allow direct mayoral elections.
3. The Lithuanian parliament passed amendments to prohibit symbols associated with Russian aggression in Ukraine.
4. The Brazilian President pardoned his political ally and escalated his feud with the Supreme Court.
5. Seven Afghan men were flogged in the first such sentence to be handed by the Taliban-run Supreme Court.
6. International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor visited Bucha in Ukraine to investigate alleged war crimes in the country.
7. The Mexican parliament blocked the president’s plan to increase state control over power generation.
8. The Indonesian parliament passed a landmark bill on sexual violence.

New Scholarship

1. Sujit Choudhry, Can Federalism Save India’s Constitutional Democracy? 4 Jus Cogens (questioning whether the design of the Indian constitution can be a source of constitutional resilience against the rising threat of authoritarianism and Hindu majoritarianism).
2. Bridget A. Fahey, Data Federalism 135(4) Harward Law Review (providing an account of vast and rapidly expanding intergovernmental marketplace in individual data by arguing that constitutional doctrines can and should be adapted to police the exchange of data and that data as a form of governmental power has the potential to unsettle federalism in both function and theory).
3. Tony George Puthucherril, Water Federalism, Tribunalization of Water Justice and Hydro-Politics: India’s Inter-State River Water Disputes Act at 65 Years 35(1) Columbia Journal of Asian Law (examining water federalism in India by questioning whether water should be transferred from the State List to the Concurrent List and whether India should persist with the tribunal system or replace it with the judicial process at the Supreme Court level).
4. Aziz Z. Huq, The Supreme Court and the Dynamics of Democratic Backsliding 669(1) The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (exploring the role of the U.S. Supreme Court in contemporary democratic backsliding through identifying dynamics that have placed American democracy under strain).
5. Christopher J. Williams and Gregory Shufeldt, How identity influences public attitudes towards the US federal government: lessons from the European Union 57 Acta Politica (exploring why Americans have a positive or negative effect on the US federal government by drawing on existing theoretical and empirical research regarding individual attitudes towards the European Union, examining the effect of ethnocentrism on American attitudes towards the federal government).
6. Julian Scholtes, Abusing Constitutional Identity 22(4) German Law Journal (arguing that the anti-pluralist critiques of constitutional identity, while rightly criticizing the authoritarian appropriations of constitutional identity, ultimately go too far and draw the wrong conclusions).
7. Gabriella Citroni, Irene Spigno, Palmina Tanzarella (eds.) The Right to Political Participation: A Study of the Judgments of the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights (2022) (offering a comparative analysis of how judgments from the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights affect political participation and electoral justice at the national level).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and the Faculty of Law of the University of Oslo host the Oslo Environmental Law Conference „The Transformative Power of Law: Addressing Global Environmental Challenges“ to be held in Oslo on 3-6 October 2022. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 30 April 2022.
2. The Netherlands Academy for Empirical Legal Studies organizes an International Empirical Legal Studies Conference to be held in Amsterdam on 1-2 September 2022. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 1 May 2022.
3. The Amsterdam Centre for European Studies organizes a „Conference on enabling sustainable mobility practices in Europe“ to be held in Amsterdam on 27-28 October 2022. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 1 May 2022.
4. The Society of Legal Scholars and the Centre for Innovation and Research in Legal Education of the University of Leeds organize the hybrid international conference „Academic Integrity in the Law School: Past Experiences, Current Challenges, and Future Perspectives“ to be held in Leeds and Online on 17 June 2022. Registration in advance is required.
5. The University of Minnesota Law School invites abstracts for the Cybersecurity Law and Policy Scholars Conference to be held in Minnesota on 23-24 September 2022. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 15 May 2022.
6. The University of Milan calls for abstracts for the workshop „What future for environmental and climate litigation? Exploring the added value of a multidisciplinary approach from international, criminal, and private law perspectives“ to be held in Milan on 16 September 2022. The University of Milan covers travel and accommodation expenses for selected speakers. The selected speakers will also be invited to develop their abstracts into papers that will be proposed for publication in an open-access volume. For further questions please feel free to contact the organizing committee at workshop.milan@unimi.it. The deadline for applications is 16 May 2022.
7. Católica Law School in Lisbon organizes the Católica Graduate Legal Research Conference 2022 „Multilateral cooperation and transnational legal integration“ to be held in Lisbon on 13-14 October 2022. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 31 May 2022.
8. PluriCourts and Birmingham Law School host the workshop „The Value(s) of the European Convention on Human Rights“ to be held in Birmingham on 8-9 September 2022. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 3 June 2022.
9. The Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society, and Rule of Law invites applicants for Ph.D. studentships to start in September 2022. The deadline for applications is 15 May 2022.

Elsewhere Online

1. Richard Albert, 40 years on, Canada’s Charter of Rights is a beacon to the world, Ottawa Citizen
2. Neven Andjelic, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Ukraine: On the edge of NATO and the EU, too close to prying neighbours, Centre on Constitutional Change
3. Alex Schwartz, Estimating semantic change in UK constitutional discourse, Centre on Constitutional Change
4. Jens Woelk, “Kyiv is under siege and so is democracy!“ Ukraine as a new EU member? The return of politics to EU integration, Eureka!
5. Valentino Grbavac and Ivan Pepic, Streamlining a tangled web: Towards a truly democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina, Eureka!
6. Gabriel Tan, Recent developments on declaratory relief in Public Law, UK Constitutional Law Blog
7. Tetyana Krupiy, The Modern Bill of Rights creates barriers to challenging algorithmic decisions, UK Constitutional Law Blog
8. Giovanni De Gregorio, Pietro Dunn, and Oreste Pollicino, Shareholder Power as a Constitutionalising Force: Elon Musk’s Bid to Buy Twitter, Verfassungsblog
9. Witold Zontek, Can Putin Be Tried in Poland?, Verfassungsblog
10. William Partlett, Russian Crown-Presidentialism, Verfassungsblog