What’s New in Public Law

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–Simon Drugda, University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Law

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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 US Supreme Court declined to hear a case concerning the gender equality in college sports in a lawsuit challenging Michigan State University’s elimination of its women’s swimming and diving team.
2. The US Supreme Court heard an argument in a case concerning the ability of Colorado authorities to compel businesses to serve LGBT clients under anti-discrimination law.
3. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled that Northern Ireland protesters cannot interfere with abortion services.
4. The Constitutional Court of Bonsnia and Herzegovina rejected an appeal to suspend the election law.
5. The passage of a law by the Libyan Parliament to create a constitutional court has triggered controversy in war-torn Libya.

In the News

1. China eased COVID-19 restrictions nationwide in a major policy change.
2. The US Conress passed the same-sex marriage protection bill.
3. White House criticised the Trump call to “terminate” Constitutional rules and regulations in the United States.
4. Alberta legislature passed bill allowing provincial government to override the Canadian federal law.
5. A Texas state court dismissed a lawsuit filed against a physician who violated Texas’s state law that bans abortions after six weeks.

New Scholarship

1. Melissa Crouch, Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (2022) (examining the origins, development, and influence of the Constitution on the state of constitutional democracy in Indonesia)
2. Alessandro Ferrara, Sovereignty Across Generations (forthcoming 2023) (developing a theory of democratic sovereignty and constituent power grounded in John Rawls’s political liberalism)
3. Migai Akech, The Basic Structure ‘Doctrine’ and the Politics of Constitutional Change in Kenya: A Case of Judicial Adventurism? (2022) (critically examining the application of the basic structure doctrine by Kenyan courts)
4. Haim Sandberg, The Struggle for the Independence of the Judiciary in The Palestinian Authority, in Shimon Shetreet, Hiram E. Chodosh (eds), Judicial Independence: Cornerstone of Democracy (forthcoming 2023) (examining the struggle for independence by the Palestinian Supreme Court in the priod 2004-2016)
5. Harry Hobbs and George Williams, Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty (forthcoming 2023) (examining the phenomenon of people purporting to secede and create their own country)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Socio-Legal Studies Association invites conference submissions that make new theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions to various aspects of constitutionalism in developing democracies. The submission deadline is January 9, 2023.
2. Hasselt University organizes the third edition of the Young Legal Researchers Conference on the topic “Back to the basics: Fundamental principles of law in contemporary challenges,” on 16 December 2022, at the Law Faculty of Hasselt University in a hybrid format.
3. The Department of Law at Uppsala University invites applications for at least three doctoral student positions.
4. The Academy for European Human Rights Protection at University of Cologne is offering two PhD positions.

Elsewhere Online

1. William G. Ross, Should the US Supreme Court have an Ethics Code?, JURIST
2. Bruce Chen, The Principle of Legality and Australian COVID-19 Litigation, Admin Law Blog
3. Kirill Koroteev, Moving On in Strasbourg: How to Deal with the Russian Retreat from the European Court of Human Rights, Verfassungsblog
4. About Pratyush Singh, Reparations for the Ogiek: A Step in the Right Direction, OxHRH
5. Marek Domin, Removal of the Slovak Government by a Referendum: Act II of the Drama, IACL-AIDC Blog