What’s New in Public Law

—Mohamed Abdelaal, Assistant Professor, Alexandria University Faculty of Law

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. Germany’s Constitutional Court rejected a ban on the ‘neo-Nazi’ NPD party.
2. The UK Supreme Court ruled that state immunity and the foreign act of state doctrine do not prevent claims against the British government for alleged involvement in unlawful rendition.
3. The UK Supreme Court declared that detaining individuals solely for the purpose of interrogation violates their procedural rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.
4. Russia’s Constitutional Court declined to apply a 2014 ruling of the European Court of Human Rights.
5. Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court ruled against a government deal to transfer two islands to Saudi Arabia.
6. The High Court of Tanzania held that third party consent to marriage of girls under 18 is unconstitutional.
7. Gambia’s Supreme Court refused to hear the President’s petition to overturn his election defeat.

In the News

1. Turkey’s Parliament voted in favor of constitutional reform.
2. Italy enrolls Muslim imams in courses on the constitution.
3. Iowa senators propose a constitutional amendment against gun control.
4. Washington lawmakers move to end death penalty.
5. Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party threatens to quit the constitution-making process if certain terms are not met.
6. In Jordan, a military court ordered the arrest of rights activists over charges of insulting the King.
7. In New Jersey, a court of appeals upheld the firing of a corrections officer who wore religious clothing.

New Scholarship

1. Andrew Harding and Khin Khin Oo, Constitutionalism and Legal Change in Myanmar, (Hart, 2017) (discussing the extent and potential for the entrenchment of constitutionalism in Myanmar in a rapidly changing environment)
2. Chintan Chandrachud, Balanced Constitutionalism: Courts and Legislatures in India and the United Kingdom (Oxford University Press, 2017) (examining the promise of a new model for the protection of rights by comparing judicial review under the Indian Constitution and the UK Human Rights Act)
3. Arolda Elbasani, Governing Islam in Plural Societies: Religious Freedom, State Neutrality and Traditional Heritage, 19 J. of Balkan & Near Easter Studies 4 (2017) (outlining institutional compromises for accommodating Islam across plural polities)
4. Cory Kopitzke, Realizing an Opportunity: Limiting the Power of the Executive in the Iraqi Constitution, 2 Indiana J. of Const. Design (2017) (providing a theory on the Iraqi constitutional reform)
5. Valentino Cattelan, Legal Pluralism, Property Rights and the Paradigm of Islamic Economics, 30(1) JKAU: Islamic Economics (2017) (highlighting how the unique paradigm of Islamic economics can contribute to the promotion of a “plural market” in the global economy)
6. Cary Coglianese and Christopher S. Yoo, The Bounds of Executive Discretion in the Regulatory State, 164 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1587 (2016) (explicating the conceptual contours underlying the contemporary debate over executive discretion, and its bounds, in the regulatory state)
7. Patricia E. Skinner, Mutilation and the Law in Early Medieval Europe and India: A Comparative Study, 2 The Medieval Globe (2016) (examining the similarities and differences between corporal punishment in ancient and medieval Indian and early medieval European laws)
8. Tom Brower, Constitutions as Counter-Curses: Revenue Allocation and the Resource Curse, 24 J. L. & Pol’y (2016) (explaining how constitutional revenue allocations can help counter the resource curse because they are more likely to endure and they can assist in managing and distributing natural resource revenue in an efficient and equitable fashion)
9. Ryan Lirette and Alan D. Viard, Putting the Commerce Back in the Dormant Commerce Clause: State Taxes, State Subsidies, and Commerce Neutrality, 24 J. L. & Pol’y (2016) (arguing that commerce neutrality can be achieved by focusing on the prevention of discrimination against interstate commerce)
10. Gabe Maldoff and Omer Tene, ‘Essential Equivalence’ and European Adequacy after Schrems: The Canadian Example, Wisconsin Int’l L. J. (forthcoming) (examining the new test for adequacy that flows from the Schrems ruling)
11. Cary Coglianese and Kristin Firth, Separation of Powers Legitimacy: An Empirical Inquiry into Norms about Executive Power, 164 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1869 (2016) (examining the President’s directive authority under the decisions of the Supreme Court)
12. Charles H. Koch Jr., Judicial Dialogue for Legal Multiculturalism, 25 Mich. J. Int’l L. 879 (2004) (asserting that judicial exchange rather than dominance has inherent advantages as a technique for evolving a global legal culture.)

Calls for Papers

1. The Association of Young Legal Historians is holding its 23rd Annual Forum at the Universita Degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Dipartimento di Giuriprudenzia (May 31st-June 1st, 2017). The theme of the forum is “History of Law and Other Humanities: Views of Legal Culture Across Time.”
2. The University of Milan is organizing the international conference “Business and Human Rights: International Law Challenges, European Responses” to be held on May 29-30, 2017.
3. The Berlin Potsdam Research Group “The International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline?” invites applications for three Fellowships from 1 September 2017.
4. Stanford Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School welcomes submissions for the Tenth International Junior Faculty Forum.
5. The Asian Journal of International Law is soliciting submissions.

Elsewhere Online

1. Michael Ramsey, More on the Supreme Court Nomination, The Originalism Blog
2. Ruthann Robson, Theorizing Protest on MLK Day, Constitutional Law Prof Blog
3. Steven D. Schwinn, Can Post-9/11 Detainees Sue Federal Officials for Constitutional Violations?, Constitutional Law Prof Blog
4. Argelia Queralt Jímenez, Una historia interminable — la relación entre España y Catalunya, Blog of the IACL, AIDC
5. Taha Akyol, The ‘right to elect’ in Turkey, Daily News
6. Molly Runkle, Timeline to confirm Scalia’s successor, SCOTUS Blog
7. Salil Shetty, Defending Global Human Rights in the Trump Era, Amnesty