What’s New in Public Law

– Sarthak Gupta, Judicial Law Clerk (Supreme Court of India) and Kushagr Bakshi, SJD Candidate (University of Michigan)

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 US Supreme Court granted temporary relief to alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua detained under the Alien Enemies Act, holding they are entitled to due process. It found that the 24-hour removal notice given was inadequate but declined to specify what constitutes “reasonable notice.”
2. The European Court of Human Rights held that Germany violated the right to freedom of assembly of an applicant who was convicted for wearing a plastic visor at a demonstration, in breach of a general prohibition on carrying protective weapons (Schutzwaffen) at public outdoor assemblies in Germany.
3. The Supreme Court of India ruled that candidates must have a minimum of three years’ practice as advocates, counted from provisional enrollment, to be eligible for entry-level judicial posts, applying this requirement only to future recruitments and not to ongoing selection processes.
4. The Constitutional Court of Italy ruled it unconstitutional to exclude non-biological mothers from birth certificates of children born to same-sex couples via IVF. This means both women in same-sex couples who use IVF abroad can be legally recognised as parents in Italy.
5. The European Court of Human Rights held that Armenia violated Article 10 after a journalist named Ani Gevorgyan was arrested and had her memory cards destroyed while covering a political event in Yerevan.
6. The Constitutional Court of Romania validated the presidential runoff results, confirming Nicusor Dan’s victory with 53.6% of the vote over far-right rival George Simion. The Court unanimously rejected Simion’s appeal alleging foreign interference, with election authorities and observers affirming the election was well conducted.
7. The Supreme Court of India reserved interim orders after hearing petitions challenging key provisions of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, including denotification of waqf properties, state waqf board composition, and government land classification.
8. The European Free Trade Association Court ruled that Norway must include downstream emissions from burning extracted oil and gas in climate impact assessments for new fossil fuel projects, rejecting the government’s exclusion of these emissions.
9. The US Supreme Court, in a 4-4 split with Justice Barrett recused, affirmed by an equally divided vote an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling blocking the creation of the first religious charter school in the U.S. The decision, binding only in Oklahoma, held that public charter schools must remain non-sectarian under state and federal law.
10. The High Court of Justice in Israel ruled that the cabinet’s dismissal of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar was unlawful and lacked proper justification, citing a weak factual basis for the decision.

In the News

1. The Republic of Lithuania has filed a case against Iran before the International Court of Justice, alleging Iran’s involvement in migrant smuggling linked to Belarus and citing breaches of the UN Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants.
2. The Parliament of Hungary voted 134-37, with 7 abstentions, to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, calling it a “politically motivated” body, becoming the third country after Burundi and the Philippines to do so.
3. The Tagansky District Court in Moscow (Russia) fined Apple 10.5 million rubles for distributing content on Apple Music that allegedly promoted LGBTQA+ relationships. The charges were based on Article 6.21 of Russia’s Administrative Code, which bans depicting “non-traditional” sexual relations as socially equivalent to traditional ones.
4. The Hong Kong Court of Appeal rejected the appeals of five people convicted of rioting during the 2019 Polytechnic University protests, who were originally sentenced to five years in prison. The defendants had pleaded not guilty and were found guilty after trial for their roles in violent clashes with police.
5. The Italian Constitutional Court is hearing the review of the constitutionality of the Piantedosi Decree, which imposes sanctions on sea rescue groups and limits rescue operations in the central Mediterranean.
6. The Parliament of Kyrgyzstan passed the first reading of a draft language law requiring public officials to demonstrate Kyrgyz language proficiency, sparking debate over national identity, ethnic inclusion, and constitutional rights.
7. The ICC Prosecutor opposed Israel’s request to withdraw arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant, stating there is “no legal basis” to do so.
8. The South Korean Constitutional Court unanimously rejected Professor Lee Ho-seon’s injunction request to ban early voting in the June 3 presidential election, ruling the request invalid.
9. The Parliament of Uganda passed a law allowing military courts to try civilians, despite a recent Supreme Court ruling banning the practice. The said bill now awaits presidential assent amid opposition concerns over its constitutionality.
10. The Constitutional Court of South Africa is hearing a case to determine the scope of its jurisdiction and power in a referral under Sections 79(4)(b) and 84(2)(c) of the Constitution of South Africa.

New Scholarship

1. Curtis Bradley and Neil Siegel, Court-Stripping, Court-Packing, And Court-Defying: Revisiting The Essential Functions Of The U.S. Supreme Court, [forthcoming] Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series (examines the “essential functions thesis” in federal courts to assess its implications for Congress’s power to pack the Supreme Court, arguing for a broader understanding of the Court’s essential functions and deeper structural constitutional analysis.)
2. Yoomin Won, Emergency powers and COVID-19 derogations, International Journal of Constitutional Law, 2025 (examines state practices and variations in emergency derogations from human rights obligations during COVID-19 across ICCPR, ECHR, and ACHR treaties, highlighting differences in duration, legal bases, and regional notification patterns.)
3. M Winkler and Ilias Bantekas, The criminalization of sexual minorities in international human rights law: an appraisal, Human Rights Law Review, Volume 25, Issue 2, June 2025 (examines the expansion of domestic laws criminalizing SOGIESC and demonstrating their incompatibility with international human rights law, which mandates decriminalization despite cultural sovereignty claims.)
4. Sam Guy, Putting the Brakes on Infrastructure? Judicial Review Challenges to HS2 and the Critique of ‘Litigant Power’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 2025 (examines how legal challenges, or ‘litigant power,’ affect infrastructure projects like England’s High-Speed 2 railway, highlighting delays without clear judicial overreach but cautioning against oversimplified critiques of judicial review.)
5. Austin Baker and J. Remy Green, The Right to Transgender Identity, Chapter in The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Jurisprudence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025 (explores whether people have rights to their social identities, focusing on gender identity rights and the constitutional scrutiny that should apply to laws affecting transgender individuals.)
6. Luke Dimitrios Spieker, Was Grimm wrong? Putting the Over-constitutionalization of EU Law to the Test, German Law Journal, 2025, 1–33 (challenges Dieter Grimm’s thesis that EU law is over-constitutionalised, arguing that the EU Treaties and institutions are more flexible and responsive than claimed, and proposing a recalibration of the Court’s jurisprudence instead of scaling back constitutional content.)
7. Kimani Paul-Emile, Drug Laws and the Construction of Race in America, [forthcoming] Handbook on Race, Racism, and the Law, edited by Aziza Ahmed and Guy Charles (examines how drug laws in America have not only targeted racialized groups but also shaped and reinforced racialized, biologized understandings of race to justify controlling both drugs and people of color within the framework of American liberalism)
8. Gabor Halmai, Book Review: David Driesen, The Specter of Dictatorship: Judicial Enabling of Presidential Power, American Journal of Comparative Law, 2025 (offers a comparative review of Driesen’s argument regarding the separation of powers and the autocracy-enabling aspects of jurisprudence in the U.S., Hungary, Poland and Turkey)
9. Relli Shechter, Legislating the Progressive Arab Society: State Authority and Social Rights in the 1964 Interim Constitutions of Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, Law and History Review, 2025 (examines the 1964 interim constitutions of Egypt, Iraq, and Syria as markers of a two-decade-long shift in Arab constitutional design—moving from individual liberal rights toward a new regional social contract centered on social rights, and argues that these documents were not simply authoritarian documents but social bargains)
10. David Landau, Courts Are Not Enough: Independent Accountability Institutions and the Protection of Democracy in the United States, Illinois Law Review, forthcoming 2026 (arguing that the U.S. has statutory variants of the independent accountability institutions found elsewhere around the world on issues like elections, integrity, and rights protection, that those institutions are currently under serious threat from the Trump administration and the Supreme Court, and that they could be made more effective through careful institutional design).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law (Vol. 28, 2025) invites papers on the theme “Facts in International Humanitarian Law,” focusing on challenges in factual determinations during armed conflict and related legal indeterminacies. Deadline for abstracts (max 500 words) is June 13, 2025; final papers (max 10,000 words) due by October 24, 2025. Submission details are here.
2. The Cambridge International Law Journal invites submissions for Volume 14(2) themed “Navigating a Multipolar World: Challenges to the Post-WWII Status Quo of International Law,” to be published in December 2025. Deadline: May 30, 2025. Submission details are here.
3. The Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships 2025–2026 offer research and art fellowships for international students and researchers to study in Switzerland. Applications are submitted via Swiss embassies with deadlines varying by country. Application details are here.
4. The Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights invites early career researchers to a free online workshop on academic writing, taking place on June 25, 12:00–13:00 CEST. Register here.
5. The University of Liverpool’s Law School is offering Graduate Teaching Fellowships for the 2025/26 academic year. These positions are designed for early-career researchers pursuing full-time PhD studies, providing a three-year funding package contingent on academic progress. Deadline is 9th June, 2025. Application details are here.
6. The Swedish Network for European Legal Studies invites researchers to its Annual Workshop in Lund on August 26–27. This year features a special focus on judicial activism at the CJEU after Case C-181/23, Commission v Malta. Submission details are here.
7. Institute for Law & AI (LawAI) invites law professionals, students, and academics to apply by May 31 for the Cambridge Forum on Law and AI, held August 14–18. Participants will explore AI regulation, the EU AI Act, and emerging legal challenges at the intersection of law and artificial intelligence. Application details are here.
8. The Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory has released the eighth call for applications for the “Doucet Scholarship”. The deadline for applications is 15 September 2025. More information here.

Elsewhere Online

1. Anja Bossow, Whom Is Citizenship For? In Defense of a Militant Rule of Law Mechanism (Verfassungsblog, 16 May 2025)
2. Three Decades of Constitutional Court, Blog Series: Interview with Justice Steven Majiedt, (African Law Blog, 16 May 2025)
3. Luke Cass, Joe D. Whitley and Chukwukpee Nzegwu, Do Compelled Biometrics Violate the Fifth Amendment? A Deepening Split Among Lower Courts (The Federalist Society, 19 May 2025)
4. Rouven Diekjobst, Sacred Days, Silent Guns? On the Protection of Religious Holidays Under International Humanitarian Law (Völkerrechtsblog, 19 May 2025)
5. Stefan Theil, Medical Incapacity and the UK Constitution (UK Constitutional Law Blog, 20 May 2025)
6. Gautam Bhatia, How to Read a Sentence: The Supreme Court’s Order in Mahmudabad’s Case, (Constitutional Law and Philosophy, 21 May 2025)
7. Sol Meckievi, From Extraterritorial Obligations to Aggravated Responsibility: How Regional Human Rights Courts Could Shape the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Climate Change (EJIL: Talk, 22 May 2025)
8. Samer Alnasir, From Syrian Revolution to Constitutional Ambiguity (Verfassungsblog, 23 May 2025)