What’s New in Public Law

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—Robert Rybski, Assistant Professor & Head of “Sustainable Finance – Postgraduate Studies in Law and Finance”  at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw, Rector’s Plenipotentiary for Environment and Sustainable Development.

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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 French Constitutional Council assessed that the opposition’s request does not meet the legal conditions for a potential referendum on the pension reform, arguing that the proposed legislation does not address a required “reform regarding social policy … and therefore judges that it does not satisfy conditions” set out in the French Constitution.
2. The Belgian Constitutional Court upheld most of the legislation related to COVID-19 certificates.
3. The parliament of Republika Srpska voted to quit the ethnic Serb entity’s participation in the Constitutional Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina
4. The Constitutional Court of Turkey annulled a provision of the Turkish Civil Code which required women to take their husbands’ surnames after marriage.
5. The Constitutional Court of Uganda nullified the Narcotic Drug Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act on the grounds of lack of quorum when this law was passed.
6. The U.S. Supreme Court put on hold scheduled for the May 18 execution of Richard Glossip.

In the News

1. Poland celebrated the 232nd anniversary of adopting its 3^rd May Constitution, the second written constitution in the world.
2. Anti-monarchy protests accompanied the coronation of King Charles III.
3. Voters in Uzbekistan overwhelmingly approved constitutional changes that will allow the president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, to remain in power until 2040.
4. Mali’s ruling junta announced it would hold a referendum on a new constitution on June 18^th.
5. A resolution to remove the deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution failed in the U.S. Senate.
6. Greenland unveils draft constitution for potential independence from Denmark.
7. Chile voted on a new Constitutional Convention.
8. Poland’s ruling party proposed a new reform of the Constitutional Court.

New Scholarship

1. Kristina Stoeckl, Traditional values, family, homeschooling: The role of Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church in transnational moral conservative networks and their efforts at reshaping human rights (2023), International Journal of Constitutional Law (explores how Russian state actors and the Russian Orthodox Church have come to play an increasingly important role in the undermining of established understandings of international human rights law by reinterpreting its aims and repurposing its institutions, in particular the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council, and the European Court of Human Rights)
2. Richard L. Heppner Jr., Let the Right Ones In: The Supreme Court’s Changing Approach to Justiciability (2023), 61 Duquesne Law Review 79 (discusses whether the newly ascendant conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court might distort standing doctrine, and other justiciability doctrines, in order to decide particular, controversial issues)
3. Farrah Ahmed, Constitutional parasitism, camouflage, and pretense: Shaping citizenship through subterfuge (2023), International Journal of Constitutional Law (explores strategies of subterfuge by which authoritarian and nationalist governments appropriate constitutional rights or values to disguise, mask, or misdirect attention from the true nature of their actions).
4. Richard Weinmeyer, Lavatories of Democracy: Recognizing a Right to Public Toilets Through International Human Rights and State Constitutional Law (2023), University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, vol. 26 (makes the case that recognizing a state constitutional right to public bathrooms is the best way to address the problem that members of the public in the U.S. are too often forced to rely on the private provision of bathrooms)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The ICON-S Benelux Chapter organizes its inaugural conference “Crises, Challenges, and the future of Public law” on 26-27 October 2023. The conference will take place in Maastricht (NL), hosted by Maastricht University – Faculty of Law, with a fully in-person program of panels and keynote sessions. The Call for Papers closes on 20 June 2023.
2. The Montaigne Centre for Rule of Law and Administration of Justice and the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) of Utrecht University organize a workshop “Exploring Linkages between Rule of Law Backsliding and Human Rights: How to Find the Brakes on A Slippery Slope?” on 26th September 2023, at the premises of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. The deadline for abstract submission is 15^th May.
3. Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa invites applications for a summer school “Climate change and human rights – New Developments in Law, Litigation and Beyond”. The event will take place on site from 3^rd till 7^th of July 2023. The deadline for application is 5^th June 2023.
4. Hertie School Centre for Fundamental Rights with the support of the Volkswagen Foundation and in collaboration with Helmut Schmidt University organizes a workshop “Frames of European Human Rights – How are climate change, migration, and authoritarianism framed within the Council of Europe?” on the 16^th-17^th November 2023 in Berlin, Germany. Abstracts should be sent by 23^rd June 2023.
5. The Department of International Law at the Faculty of Public Governance and International Studies at Ludovika – University of Public Service, Budapest, Hungary organize a conference “War and Peace in the 21st Century, 2nd Edition – The Fate of Human Rights” on 29^th till 30^th September 2023 at the Ludovika Campus in Budapest, Hungary. The deadline for abstracts is 15^th June 2023.
6. The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law currently invites submissions on a closed list of topics in the field of comparative constitutional law. A list of topics (subject to constant change) is available here. More details on how to send your expression of interest can be found here.

Elsewhere Online

1. Lena Koehn, Judicial Backlash Against the Rights of Nature in Ecuador, Verfassungsblog
2. Peter Kahn, Dov Weissglas, Proposed Legal Reforms in Israel: Are Israel’s “Constitutional Conventions” in Jeopardy?, Judicature International
3. Mark Deng, On the Path of Destruction, Verfassungsblog
4. Marko Milanovic, Amicus Curiae Brief in Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia, EJIL:Talk
5. Katherine C. Snow, Environmental Intelligence and the Need to Collect it, Verfassungsblog
6. Stephen Tierney, The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Time for the United Kingdom to Learn from Other Federal Systems?, IACL-AIDC Blog
7. Felix Peerboom, Flexible Responsibility or the End of Asylum Law as We Know It?, Verfassungsblog
8. David Bilchitz, Surya Deva, The Horizontal Application of Fundamental Rights in India: “Kishor” (Baby) Steps in the Right Direction?, IACL-AIDC Blog
9. Lorin Wagner, Investing Immobilized Russian Assets, Monetarizing the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Verfassungsblog
10. Thomas Perroud, A Conservative Constitutional Council Watching over a Conservative Constitution, Verfassungsblog