What’s New in Public Law

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—Maja Sahadžić, Assistant Professor (Utrecht University), Visiting Professor (University of Antwerp), Senior Research Fellow (Law Institute in B&H), and Affiliated Scholar (CUHK).

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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 Supreme Court of the United States of America dismissed the oil giant’s appeals in climate lawsuits.
2. The Supreme Court of the United States of America upheld access to an abortion pill.
3. The Supreme Court of the United States of America will decide if First Amendment stops government officials from blocking social media critics.
4. The Supreme Court of Iran upheld the death sentence of an Iranian-German man.
5. The Supreme Court of India hears petitions seeking to legalize same-sex marriage in highly publicized debates.

In the News

1. The EU Parliament backed the EU carbon market overhaul with the world’s first CO2 tariff.
2. The EU Parliament reached a provisional political deal on the world’s first Artificial Intelligence rulebook.
3. Members of the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska (an entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina) voted to quit the country’s Constitutional Court and urged the ethnic Serb judge to leave his post in the Court.
4. The Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina imposed an amendment to the Constitution to unblock the appointment of the Government of the Federation (an entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina).
5. The Irish government approved the country’s first ‘Clean Air Strategy’.
6. Senators urged the Supreme Court of the United States of America to Ethics Code.
7. The European General Court rejected the claim that Airbus won a major satellite contract by hiring a top executive from a rival company.
8. The President of Uganda demanded a revision of an anti-LGBTQ bill.
9. Pope Francis approved reforms granting women the right to vote at bishops’ meetings.
10. The Polish government approved measures requiring internet providers to offer free and easy-to-use tools for blocking pornographic content.
11. The Dutch administrative court banned the government from returning asylum seekers to Italy.

New Scholarship

1. Richard Albert, Reformas constitucionales: elaborar, romper y cambiar constituciones (2023) (Spanish translation of the successful first comprehensive study of constitutional amendment rules and the first analysis identifying and theorizing the major traditions of amendment codification in the world introducing the concept of “constitutional dismemberment” as a contrast to the idea of “constitutional amendment”).
2. Maja Sahadžić, Marjan Kos, Jaka Kukavica, Jakob Gašperin Wischhoff, and Julian Scholtes (eds), Accommodating Diversity in Multilevel Constitutional Orders, Legal Mechanisms of Divergence and Convergence (2023) (offering insights into the legal mechanisms that are adopted in multilevel constitutional orders to accommodate the tension between contrasting interests of diversity and unity and the converging or diverging effects they may have on the functioning of a multilevel constitutional order).
3. Annalisa Cocco, The Role of Energy Communities in the Energy Transition 8(2) The Italian Law Journal (offering a legal framework for Energy Communities in the European and Italian contexts with particular attention to the function of collective energy sharing introduced by lawmakers in the context of regulatory actions to implement the decarbonization goals set by the Paris Agreement.).
4. Ryan C. Williams, Unconstitutional Conditions and the Constitutional Text 172 University of Pennsylvania Law Review (analyzing aspects of current judicial doctrine, including the presumed waivability of most significant individual rights guarantees and the courts’ tendency to focus on the “germaneness” of particular conditions to the government’s regulatory objectives as a measure of constitutionality that are likely consistent with a proper interpretation of the constitutional text).
5. Holning Lau and Mara Malagodi, Legal Gender Recognition in Nepal and Comparative Context Forthcoming University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law (analyzing claims to gender self-determination on identity documents in Nepal, providing context for analyzing the Supreme Court’s forthcoming ruling as well as the most comprehensive study to date of gender self-determination laws around the world).
6. Giulia Cimini, Political Parties in Post-Uprising Tunisia and Morocco, Organization, Development and Legitimation (2023) (offering a comparative, theory-grounded study of Maghrebi political parties since the Arab uprisings, specifically focused on Tunisia and Morocco in the first decade after the 2011 watershed elections).
7. John Kincaid and J. Wesley Leckrone (eds), Teaching Federalism, Multidimensional Approaches (2023) (presenting innovative ideas for teaching a wide variety of key concepts of federalism and federal-country cases).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Montaigne Centre for Rule of Law and Administration of Justice and the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights of Utrecht University invite abstracts for the international academic workshop “Exploring Linkages between Rule of Law Backsliding and Human Rights: How to Find the Brakes on A Slippery Slope?” to be held in Utrecht on 26 September 2023. The deadline for submissions is 15 May 2023.
2. The Institute for Comparative Federalism at Eurac invites applications for the Federal Scholar in Residence Program. The deadline for submissions is 1 July 2023.
3. Forum of Federations and Center for Democracy Studies Aarau organize a roundtable for experts and decision-makers “Crisis Management in Federal Democracies” to be held Online on 8 May 2023 (15:00-18:00 CET).
4. DIPEC and The International Association of Constitutional Law organize the Roundtable “The Principle of Equality: New and Old Challenges” in Siena and Online on 15-16 June 2023 (9:30-19:00 CET). Registration is needed.
5. The ICON S Benelux Chapter invites submissions for its Inaugural Conference “Crises, Challenges, and the Future of Public Law” to be held in Maastricht on 26-27 October 2023. The deadline for submission is 20 June 2023.
6. Melbourne Law School organizes the 2023 CCCS Constitutional Law Conference to be held in Melbourne on 20-21 June 2023. Registrations are open.
7. The ICON S Committee on New Directions in Scholarship organizes the New Scholarship Showcase on the book “Federalism and Constitutional Law. The Italian Contribution to Comparative Regionalism” to be held Online on 15 May (14:30-16:00 CET). Registration is obligatory.

Elsewhere Online

1. Joseph Weiler, ChatGPT and law exams, EJIL:Talk!
2. Sarah Thin, Admissibility vs Jurisdiction in Guyana v Venezuela (ICJ), EJIL:Talk!
3. Maja Sahadžić, The Bonn Powers in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Between a rock and a hard place, ConstitutionNet
4. David Bilchitz and Surya Deva, The Horizontal Application of Fundamental Rights in India: “Kishor” (Baby) Steps in the Right Direction?, IACL-AIDC
5. Federica Cittadino, Seeking bolder and stronger climate action: A historic UN resolution requests the ICJ to issue an opinion on climate obligations, Eureka!
6. Lena Koehn and Julia Nassl, Judicial Backlash Against the Rights of Nature in Ecuador, Verfassungsblog
7. Ming-Sung Kuo, Context Is Open to Interpretation, Too, Verfassungsblog
8. Niall Coghlan, If the EU Picks Baby Genes, Verfassungsblog
9. Thomas Perroud, A Conservative Constitutional Council Watching over a Conservative Constitution, Verfassungsblog
10. Alba Hernandez Weiss, Judicial review of investigative measures under the EPPO Regulation. More to it than it seems? A recap of the Oral Hearing in G.K & Others, European Law Blog
11. Josh Gerstein, Supreme Court’s new ethics declaration stops short of concrete action, Politico
12. Moira Donegan, A reasonable supreme court? Hardly. Don’t be fooled by this extremist establishment, The Guardian
13. Adam Liptak, In Abortion Pill Ruling, the Supreme Court Trades Ambition for Prudence, New York Times
14. Natalie Sauer, Illegal migration bill: can the government ignore the European court of human rights?, The Conversation