What’s New in Public Law

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—Amir Cahane, PhD student, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

–Carolina Gomide de Araujo, Master’s student, University of São Paulo

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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. According to a leaked draft of a ruling, the justices of the Israeli Supreme Court are set to nullify the law that eliminated the reasonableness clause.
2. Michigan Supreme Court uphled Donald Trump’s 2024 primary candidacy, contrasting the recent ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court which found Trump inelligebe to hold office again.
3. As the year comes to its end, Chile’s Constitutional Court and the  Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina struggle to Fill vacancies.
4. Israel’s High Court of Justice unanimously ruled that same-sex couples are eligible to adopt children.
5. AI cannot be named as patent ‘inventor’, UK Supreme Court rules in landmark case
6. South Korea top court upholds wartime labor rulings against Japan firms

In the News

1. Chad constitutional referendum passes with more than 80 percent of vote
2. Following the ban announced by the Democratic Republic of Congo on opposition’s protests, disputing recent presidential and legistlative elections, were violently dispersed by police
3. EU Court of Justice found the Extraordinary Review and Public Affairs Chamber of the Polish Supreme Court not to have the status of an independent and impartial tribunal
4. Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court faces image erosion and disapproval of rises to 38%
5. Argentine President Javier Milei proposes law punishing protest organizers with up to six years in prison
6. Controversial Brazil law curbing Indigenous rights comes into force and Indigenous peoples can only lay claim to lands they occupied in 1988.

New Scholarship

1. Tushnet, Mark, and Kochenov Dimitry, Research Handbook on the Politics of Constitutional Law
2. Gray, Kevin W., The Rise and Fall of Proportionality Review in American Constitutional Jurisprudence (arguing that there has been a greater use of elements of proportionality review in the American legal systems than often thought)
3. Mancini, Mark, One Rule To Rule Them All: Subordinate Legislation and the Law of Judicial Review (arguing that the Candaian Supreme Court’s decision in Vavilov provides a set of constitutionally compliant rules that are workable in the context of subordinate legislation review, including executive legislation)
4. Muniz da Conceição, Lucas H., Electoral Justice and the Supreme Federal Court in Brazilian Democracy, (a chapter summarising the historical foundations of the Brazilian framework for electoral management bodies, analysing the intersection between the Superior Electoral Court and the Supreme Federal Court and perceiving how the accumulation of administrative and judicial power in both institutions affects Brazilian constitutional democracy)
5. Hamburger, Philip, Courting Censorship (arguing that the US suprme court free speech jurisprudence have left room for government suppression, even to the point of seeming to legitimize it.  The Article challenges the need for any state action doctrine and contests the coercion model—the prototypical measure of forbidden government severity—that runs through Supreme Court doctrine on state action, constitutional rights, and even governmental structure.)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Cfp: the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) Annual Conference, that will be held in the University of Portsmouth invites authors to submit papers, in particular for the Constitutionalism In Developing Democracies stream.
2. CfP: The National Law School of India Review (NLSIR) accepts submissions for Volume 36(1), its general issue which is not restricted to any particular legal area/theme.
3. CfP: 7th Young European Law Scholars Conference (YELS), ‘A Union of Crises: In Search of Constitutional Resilience’,6-7 June 2024, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Law
4. CfP: The International Society of Public Law welcomes you to the Society’s 10th Annual Conference, scheduled to be held on July 8-10, 2024, in Madrid, Spain. All members of ICON•S are invited to make their submissions
5. CfP: On May 30-31, 2024, within the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL), the Research Group on “Constitutional Responses to Terrorism”, will hold its Annual Workshop on “Advanced Technologies in Emergencies. The Downfall of the Transparency Principle in Counter-Terrorism and Warfare?”. The Organizers of the Workshop welcome the submission of papers dealing with the workshop topics. Authors of selected proposals will be invited to present their work at the Conference.
6. CfP: International Congress on “The Head of State in Parliamentary Monarchies”

Elsewhere Online

1. Sarah Ganty, Dimitry Vladimirovich Kochenov and Ignatius Yordan  Nugraha, Constitutional Identity vs. Human Rights (December 21, 2023)
2. Godfrey Mwango, Mainstreaming Merits Review: Kenya’s Court of Appeal Further Clarifies the Scope of Judicial Review Law (December 14, 2023)
3. Sammy Talalay, The Lord Chancellor, the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law (December 19, 2023)
4. Alexandra Topping, How one of the world’s oldest newspapers is using AI to reinvent journalism (December 28, 2023)
5. Michael M. Grynbaum and Ryan Mac, The Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over A.I. Use of Copyrighted Work (December 27, 2023)
6. Madeline Holcombe, Millennial women are facing the first decline in well-being since the Silent Generation, report says (December 13, 2023)