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. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the state of New York to enforce a gun control law that was blocked in late 2022.
2. The High Court of Uganda will hear a case concerning potential irregularities in the September 2022 East African Legislative Assembly election.
3. Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Court annulled the Law on the First President that granted several privileges and exclusive rights to the first president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. This was the first ruling of Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Court, which began its work on January 1, 2023.
4. Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that the refusal of a request to return the properties of two Armenian foundations, which the Treasury had taken over, violated their property rights.
5. Dominican Constitutional Court dismissed a direct action for unconstitutionality filed by the Dominican National Association of the Deaf for alleged legislative omission resulting from a violation of Articles 26, 39.3, 58, and 64.2 of the Constitution and for failing to approve a project law regulating sign language.
6. Uganda’s Constitutional Court declared a section of the internet law which restricted free speech ‘null and void’.

In the News

1. Nigeria’s next month’s general election risks being cancelled/postponed due to rising insecurity. Ninety million Nigerians registered to vote in the 25 February election.
2. Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the Brazilian capital refusing to accept the election results.
3. Montenegro is expected to appoint four judges to the Constitutional Court by the end of January 2023.
4. Bosnian Serbs celebrated the ‘Republika Srpska Day’ despite the ruling of the Constitutional Court, which declared the event illegal and unconstitutional in November 2015.
5. The Supreme Court of Canada will hear 17 appeals in its winter session, including a French-language rights case.

New Scholarship

1. Richard Albert (2022) The World’s Most Difficult Constitution to Amend?, California Law Review, 110, 2005-2022 (examining the sources of amendment difficulty in the United States and explaining why all proposals to amend the Constitution are for now doomed to failure)
2. Saskia Stucki (2023). One Rights: Human and Animal Rights in the Anthropocene, Springer (asks whether animals can and should have human rights through a comprehensive review of contemporary human rights philosophy by discussing both naturalistic and political justifications of human and animal rights)
3. Moamen Gouda & Shimaa Hanafy (2022). Islamic Constitutions and Democracy, Political Research Quarterly, 75(4), 994-1005. (examines whether constitutions that prescribe Islamic law as a source of legislation affect democracy) 
4. Adeno Addis (2022). The Making of Strangers: Reflections on the Ethiopian Constitution. Journal of Developing Societies, 38(4), 421-439. (exposes how the Ethiopian constitution has divided the collective political life instead of assuring its union)
5. Dirk Kotzé (2022). An Election Postponement as a Change of the Constitution: Its Democratic and Constitutional Implications, Politikon (analyses the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on a potential postponement of the 2021 South African local government elections and whether such postponement constitutes a legal amendment of the constitution) 
6. Charlotte Ventham, Beatrice Collier, Robert Cohen, Robert Talalay & Jennifer Wright (2022). Judicial Reviews Claims Involving the Police, Judicial Review (provide a comprehensive update on the current jurisprudence emerging from public law decisions in the policing arena)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL) which will take place on June 19th – June 23rd 2023, in Braga, Portugal, invites submissions on matters related to AI and law. The deadline (DL) for submission of papers is February, 12th 2023.
2. The ICAIL also organizes the ICAIL 2023 Doctoral Consortium for phd researchers focused on AI and Law and Law and Ethics for Legal AI. The thesis descriptions or research outcomes should be limited to 10 pages in English using LNCS format and submitted electronically, jointly with a maximum 3-page CV in PDF format and sent to https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icail2023dc. The DL for submission is March, 26th 2023.
3. The Melbourne Law School organizes the Workshop Romancing the Thomes 2.0: Feminism, Law and Popular Culture, which will take place on May, 25^th and 26^th 2023, and calls for papers that address the intersection between feminism, popular culture, and non-traditional subjects of law. A 100-200 words abstract and a 50-word bio must be sent to romancingthethomes2.0@gmail.com by January, 31^st  2023.
4. The Routledge Handbook of Social Media, Law and Society calls for contributions on social media platforms’ uses and abuses. Papers on contemporary challenges, perspectives and theory, speech, politics, protest and democracy, information and property, gender and violence, privacy and data, harms, moderation, trust and oversight, enforcement and remedies are welcomed. For proposed contributions, interested scholars must contact Dr Kim Barker and Dr Olga Jurasz at smhandbook23@outlook.com. Abstracts are due on January, 20^th, 2023.
5. The Laws Journal is preparing a special issue, Models of Law and in Law: Uses, Opportunities, and Risks. The DL for manuscript submissions is March, 15th 2023.
6. The Lancaster University organizes the Law as Literature, Literature as Law – c. 1150-1850, on April, 17th-19th 2023. Scholarly contributions on the following themes are particularly encouraged to be submitted: law and literature, legal literature and legal writing, law as performance, performance that stages, interrogates and falls foul of the law, literature as a legal medium, the materiality of legal and literary texts, the materiality of legal and literary texts, popular literature, popular law. Abstracts of no more than 250 words must be emailed to Dr Clare Egan c.egan2@lancaster.ac.uk and Dr Sarah White s.white9@lancaster.ac.uk by February, 15th 2023. 

Elsewhere Online

1. Christine Savino, Chile’s Second Draft: an Opportunity to Enforce Indigenous Human Rights through Constitutional Law, Oxford Human Rights Hub 
2. Gautam Bahtia, Evictions and the Right to Housing: The Uttarakhand High Court’s Haldwani Judgment, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy
3. Thomas Bustamante, Political Terror in the Shade of Bolsonarism, Verfassungsblog
4. Louis Holbrook, Challenging the Right to Strike: the UK Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, Oxford Human Rights Hub
5. Yuval Shany, International Law of the Sea Meets Israeli Constitutional Law: The New Israeli-Lebanese Maritime Border Agreement, Lawfare
6. Sean Beeghly, Uganda Constitutional Court Declares Controversial Section of Communications Law Void, The Jurist