What’s New in Public Law

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—Erick Guapizaca Jiménez, SJD Candidate, University of Michigan Law School.

—Rajesh Ranjan, Lawyer, Researcher & former Samta (Equity) fellow based in India.

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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. In the landmark case Gayatri Balasamy v. ISG Novasoft Technologies Limited (2025 INSC 605), the Supreme Court of India, by a 4:1 majority, held that Article 142 of the Constitution of India (Power of the Supreme Court to do complete justice) can be invoked to modify an arbitral award. The majority emphasized the Court’s broad constitutional powers to do complete justice in any cause. However, in a landmark dissent, Justice K.V. Viswanathan cautioned against such use of Article 142, asserting that it risks undermining the statutory framework of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, which does not permit judicial modification of arbitral awards.
2. A contentious regulation requiring the removal of stray dogs from public streets was upheld by Turkey’s Constitutional Court. This law mandates that municipalities are required by law to catch, house, vaccinate, neuter, and offer these animals for adoption.
3. The United States Supreme Court in United States V. Shilling permitted the Trump administration to enforce a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson have dissented in the order.
4. The Indian Supreme Court in Pragya Prasun Vs Union of India held that the Right to Digital Access is a part of fundamental rights under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. The judgment authored by Justice R. Mahadevan affirmed the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India must be reinterpreted to reflect the evolving technological realities that encompass every walk of human life.
5. The Constitutional Court of South Africa has ruled that a section of the Citizenship Act, which automatically revoked citizenship from South Africans who acquired another nationality, is unconstitutional.

In the News

1. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators clash with security guards at Columbia University. Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian student group, said it had occupied part of Butler Library because it believed the university profited from “imperialist violence.”
2.  United Kingdom officials defends the free trade agreement with India. The deal is the biggest trade agreement the U.K. has signed with a single country since leaving the European Union.
3. European Union countries want to include energy policies in the bloc’s efforts to cut red-tapism for the struggling industries.

New Scholarship

1. Kushagr Bakshi, Marriage, Courts, and Substantive Equality: A Transformative Interpretation, 123 Mich. L. Rev. 519 (2025) (arguing that courts adopting a transformative approach to constitutional interpretation, centred on substantive equality rather than privacy, provide more robust and duty-imposing protections for LGBTQ+ individuals).
2. Disha Wadekar, Constitution of Criminality: The Role of India’s Constitution-Making Process in Legitimizing Notions of Hereditary Criminality, Oxford Intersections: Racism by Context (Oxford, online edn, Oxford Academic, 2025) (arguing that India’s Constitution-Making Process legitimized the notion of hereditary criminality)
3. Brian Flanagan, Collective Mental Action: Turning Texts into Statutes, 70 The American Journal of Jurisprudence 21 (2025) (the paper revises Bratman’s framework to a) incorporate a majoritarian rule of aggregation and, b) conceive of legislation as a mental act involving the formation of a collective policy “will” rather than a collective policy “intention).
4. Ann E. Tweedy, Anti Commandeering & Indian Affairs Legislation, 60 Harvard Journal on Legislation 39 (2025). (The Supreme Court’s decision in Haaland v. Brackeen applied the anti commandeering doctrine to Indian Affairs for the first time without justification, and this article argues that only a narrow version of the doctrine should apply given the limited role of states in this area and the long-standing federal authority to direct state involvement in Indian Affairs).
5. Danica Summerlin & Alice Taylor, Law Beyond the Legal Renaissance: Rethinking Jurisdiction in the European Central Middle Ages, 46 The Journal of Legal History 1(2025). (explaining why ‘legal pluralism’ has not offered a meaningful structure to understand the creativity inherent in law-making (in all its senses) in this period)
6. Gabriele Wadlig, The International Law of Land (Grabbing): Human Rights and Development in the Context of Racial Capitalism, 25 Chicago Journal of International Law) (investigating the concept of tenure security within international law, emphasizing the global legal architectures that influence and shape land tenure governance at the intersections of international human rights law and development).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Cambridge International Law Journal is pleased to invite submissions for Volume 14(2), scheduled for publication in December 2025. This issue builds upon the 14th Annual Conference of the CILJ, held on 28-29 April 2025, and is open to submissions from all authors, including those who were not presenting or participating in the Conference.  Deadline: May 30, 2025. Submission details are here.
2. The Junior International Law Scholars Association will be holding a summer workshop series to be held during the weeks of June 30, July 7th, and July 14th.  Deadline: May 23, 2025. Submission details here.
3. The McGill Faculty of Law is delighted to welcome the American Society of Comparative Law for its 2025 Annual Meeting, which will take place in Montreal, Canada, from Thursday, October 16 to Saturday, October 18, 2025. Deadline: May 14, 2025. Submission details are here.
4. The Society of Juridical and Administrative Sciences is hosting the Conference on Comparative and International Law on June 27, 2025.  Deadline for registration: June 19, 2025. Submission details are here.
5. The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law CJCL invites submissions. The Journal publishes three issues each year and accommodates substantial articles and shorter works, including but not confined to legislative commentaries, case notes, and book reviews. Submission details are here.

Elsewhere Online

1. Ruairi O’Neill, The Silent Engine of European Citizenship (7 May 2025) Verfassungsblog.
2. Sasanka Perera Secularism as Misdirection:  (6 May 2025) Law and other Things.
3. Nidhi Suman Capital, Caste and College Friendship (14th April 2025) Jury’s Out
4. P.D.T. Achary: A restoration of sanity to the constitutional system (19th April 2025) The  Hindu
5. Deniz Dirisu & Manon Balbinot Institutionalization: A Way Forward to Prove the Role of Open-Source Intelligence to the Courts (28 April 2025) Opino Juris.
6. David Sobreira’s “How Courts Die” (6 May 2025) SSRN