What’s New in Public Law

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–Irina Criveț, PhD Candidate Public Law, Koç University

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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. Berlin’s highest court invalidated the 26th September 2021 state poll because of a series of errors that were relevant to election mandates.
2. A coalition of Ugandan rights groups and lawyers lodged a petition at the Constitutional Court challenging the controversial new internet law.
3. Taiwan’s Constitutional Court will decide whether an article from the Civil Code stating that a husband or wife may petition for divorce upon the occurrence of an event that renders it difficult to maintain the marriage, limits the circumstances in which couples can file for divorce, thus, violating the Constitution’s protection of individual freedoms.
4. South Africa’s Constitutional Court will rule on the new strict driving rules.
5. Supreme Court of India upheld the provision of reservation for the Economically Weaker Sections among the upper castes in education and employment in a majority decision.

In the News

1. Dutch judges convicted two Russians and one Ukrainian in absentia of murder for their role in the shooting down the Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 when 298 lives were lost. Kyiv and Kuala Lumpur welcomed the ruling, while Moscow said it would not extradite its citizens.
2. In the aftermath of judge Mato Tadić retirement, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina members will elect a judge to the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
3. A federal judge in Texas struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness prompting the Department of Education to stop accepting applications for debt relief.
4. More than 100 people have been sleeping outside South Africa Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, demanding reparations for crimes against them during apartheid.
5. Malaysians will elect, on the 19th of November 2022, the country’s 15th parliament and minister for the next five years.
6. Nepal will hold general elections on 20 November 2022, with 18 million voters heading to the polls to elect 275 House of Representatives and 550 Provincial Assembly members.

New Scholarship

1. Daniel McDonald (2022) Making the “Citizen Constitution”: Popular Participation in the Brazilian Transition to Democracy, 1985-1988, The Americas (2022) (examines popular participation in the making of Brazil’s 1988 post-authoritarian “Citizen Constitution” and the way everyday people meaningfully shaped the constitutional restorations in late twentieth-century Latin America)
2. Aloy Ojilere (2022) Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity: The Limits of Human Rights in Africa, Journal of Homosexuality (explores the African approach to the right to sexual orientation and gender identity and LGBTIQ rights, including homosexuality and same-sex marriage and it argues that “despite the threat of homocapitalism, prevalent Afrocentrism and religions reject these form of “new rights” for being immoral, ungodly, unnatural and un-African, thereby underlining the limits of human rights in the sub-region.”)
3. Josh Cowls, Philipp Darius, and Moritz Schramm (2022) Constitutional metaphors: Facebook’s “supreme court” and the Legitimation of Platform Governance, Space and Culture (analyses rhetorical devices that have been used to simplify the complexities associated with the governance of online platforms, including  “constitutional metaphors” and exposes the threats to platform governance)
4. M. Mohsin Alam Bhat (2022) ‘The Irregular’ and the Unmaking of Minority Citizenship: The Rules of Law in Majoritarian India, Queen Mary Law Research Paper No. 395/2022 (focuses on the ascendance of the Hindu majoritarian state, its relationship with the law and proposed a “novel interpretive framework to capture practices of ethnicization of law, ethnonationalist legitimisation through intense political mobilisation, and the production of subordinated minority citizenship without formal incorporation of graded citizenship.”)
5. J. Aaron Saiger (2022) Derailing the Deference Lockstep, Boston University Law Review (argues for a more fruitful judicial relationship between the state courts and federal agencies)
6. Francisco de Abreu Duarte and Francesca Palmiotto Ettorre (eds) (2022) Sovereignty, Technology and Governance after COVID-19 Legal Challenges in a Post-Pandemic Europe, Bloomsbury Publishing (explores how the European states have responded to the sovereign, technological and governance challenges occurred during the COVID-19 crisis and its future implications)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The King’s Student Law Review, based at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, seeks to publish contributions written by law PhD students and Early Career Researchers. The deadline for submission is Sunday, 11 December 2022.
2. The University of Michigan Law School invites junior scholars to attend “the 9th Annual Junior Scholars Conference”, which will take place in person on 21- 22 April 2023 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The conference is intended for academics in both law and related disciplines. Applications from graduate students, SJD/PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, lecturers, teaching fellows, and assistant professors (pre-tenure) who have not held an academic position for more than four years, are welcome. Applications are due by 9 January 2023.
3. The African Disability Rights Yearbook (ADRY) calls for papers for publication in Section A of the ADRY in 2023 doctrinal articles not exceeding 10000 words, including footnotes and references, in compliance with the Pretoria University Law Press guidelines. The deadline for submission is 30 April 2023.
4. The UNSW Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law and ICON-S Australia-New Zealand invites scholars to attend the “Responsive Judicial Review? A Global Judicial Dialogue” hybrid seminar that will take place from 1:00-2:30 (AEDT) on Monday, 12 December, 2022. The hybrid event will feature Professor Rosalind Dixon in conversation with Justice Stephen Gageler (High Court of Australia), Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud (Chief Justice of India), Justice Luís Roberto Barroso (Supreme Court of Brazil) and former Justice Manuel Cepeda (Constitutional Court of Colombia), about her forthcoming book “Responsive Judicial Review: Democracy and Dysfunction in the Modern Age” and will be chaired by Professor Lisa Burton-Crawford.
5. The African Journal of Privacy and Data Protection of the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos Akoka-Lagos, Nigeria, with Pretoria University Law Press, South Africa, calls for papers focused on privacy and data protection issues in Africa and African countries. The authors interested in submitting a paper to the journal should submit an abstract of 500 words by 31 December 2022.
6. Georgetown University Law Center, Stanford Law School, UCLA School of Law, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California Center for Law, History, and Culture invite submissions for the 22nd meeting of the Law and Humanities Interdisciplinary Workshop, to be held at Georgetown Law Center, Washington, DC, on 24-25 May 2023. Deadline for submissions is 15 December 2022.
7. The Global Constitutionalism Study Group and the Institute of Comparative Law, Waseda University invites all scholars with global perspectives, of international law, constitutional law, and international relations throughout the world to apply for participation in the Conference on Global Crisis and Global Legal Orders:“What should we now discuss for the Future of Global Legal Ordering?” (hybrid format), that will take place on 1-2 March 2023, Tokyo, Japan. Deadline for abstract submission is 30 November 2022 (to waseda-conference@list.waseda.jp)
8. Professor Dr Ajla Škrbić (Freie Universität Berlin), with the support of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, organises a two-day workshop on the topic “Combating Conflict-Related Sexual Violence – Comparative Insights on International and National Capacities” that will take place on 12-13 May 2023. The two-day workshop aims to bring together scholars and practitioners working on conflict-related sexual violence from different disciplinary perspectives, especially with a focus on gender. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1 January 2023.
9. The Working Group of Young Scholars in Public International Law (Arbeitskreis junger Völkerrechtswissenschaftler*innen – AjV) and the German Society of International Law (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationales Recht – DGIR) are pleased to invite PhD students and early career researchers to submit abstracts for their joint conference on “Progress and International Law” which will be held on 22-23 September 2023 at the University of Cologne. The keynote will be held by Judge of the ICJ Professor Hilary Charlesworth. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 16 January 2023. Selected candidates will be notified by 13 February 2023. Paper drafts must be submitted by 5 June 2023. Further queries can be addressed to info@ajv-mail.org.
10. The University of Hong Kong invites applications for Global Academic Fellow position in the Department of Law. Interested applicants should have completed their final degrees (JD, JSD, or PhD) before the start of their appointments unless they possess significant practice experience. Applicants should apply online at the University’s careers site and upload the following 4 components: 1) an updated C.V., 2) a 3-page research agenda (including past, current and future projects), 3) a list of at least three academic references (who should be ready to submit letters if shortlisted immediately), and 4) a writing sample (under 50 pages). The call closed on 2 January 2023.
11. The Committee on “New Directions in Scholarship” of the International Society of Public Law (ICON·S) facilitates the dissemination of works that have advanced the knowledge of Public Law and launches inclusive initiatives in public law research and methodology. Following the success of ICON·S Live, the Committee is already organizing a series of monthly virtual events dedicated to new books in public law titled “New Scholarship Showcase”.The Committee invites book proposals to be considered for the “New Scholarship Showcase” book discussion panels. We welcome books from scholars of all ranks around the world, on any topic in Public Law widely conceived especially in public international and administrative law. We are especially committed to advance diversity and inclusiveness. We particularly welcome book proposal from early-career scholars and from underrepresented groups in academia, especially people of color and women. To propose books for the committee to feature in its “New Scholarship Showcase” events, please email: iconsnewdirections@gmail.com. Proposals should include the book title, author’s name, and a short (3-5 sentence) explanation of the book’s contribution to the field. Self-nominations are welcome, as are proposals for edited volumes. The committee will consider books published in 2021 or later that are published in English or Spanish. Proposals will be considered on a rolling basis, but preference will be given to those submitted by 31 December 2022.

Elsewhere Online

1. Kartik Kalra, Rekindling the Proportionality Test for Protective Discrimination Under Article 15(3) PART I, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy
2. Jasper Krommendijk and Tijn Hendrikx, Picking Primacy over Procedural Autonomy, Verfassungsblog
3. Devi Yusvitasari and Desi Yunitasari, Reducing Child Marriage in Indonesia: The Untapped Potential of the Marriage Law (2019), Oxford Human Rights Hub
4. Aleksandra Jolkina, Seven Months in the Freezing Forest Why Events at the Latvian-Belarus Border Were Long Hidden From the Public, Verfassungsblog
5. Frederick Cowell, The Three Areas of Opposition to the Human Rights Act, UK Constitutional Law Blog
6. Hannah Ruschemeier, Nothing New in the West? The Executive Order on US Surveillance Activities and the GDPR, European Law Blog
7. Christina Pazzanese, Biggest Loser in Midterm Election? The Supreme Court, The Harvard Gazzete
8. Alan Whysall, Northen Ireland Dangers and Opportunities for London, The Constitution Unit
9. Päivi Leino-Sandberg, Nature Restoration and Fundamental Rights National Budgetary Sovereignty as a Constraint to EU Legislative Competence, Verfassungsblog