Skip to main content

What’s New: Week of April 27

— Mikołaj Wolanin, Master’s student, University of Warsaw (Poland)

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 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the State of Texas may impose an obligation on public schools to display Ten Commandments in classrooms.
  2. Four new justices of Polish Constitutional Tribunal have not been sworn-in by the President for more than a month now. The prosecution has opened an investigation.
  3. The European Court of Human Rights has applied special measures for the cases concerning the dismissal of public officials after 2016 attempted coup d’état in Türkiye.
  4. A bank may not charge interest on sums used to pay costs associated with consumer credits – ruled the Court of Justice of the European Union.
  5. 57% of Americans said in a poll conducted by Marquette Law School that the U.S. Supreme Court is avoiding ruling against Trump’s policies.

In the News

  1. Final votes in the Hungarian parliamentary elections were counted. Tisza’s constitutional majority had widened.
  2. On April 30th, citizens of Antigua and Barbuda will elect the members of the House of Representatives.
  3. Voters in Virginia (U.S.) approved, via referendum, a constitutional amendment allowing the General Assembly of the state to redistrict its congressional constituencies. However, a circuit court judge ruled that the referendum was unlawful.
  4. Internal struggles in the ruling party delay the nomination of the new Prime Minister of Iraq.
  5. A draft of the new constitution of Armenia has not been yet published, despite the promises to disclose the draft in March.

New Scholarship

  1. J.L. Huffman, ‘American Factions. How the US Constitution Can End Extreme Partisanship’, Cambridge 2026 (“American Factions advocates for a renewed understanding of the problem of political factions and a restoration of the Constitution’s limits to revive a politics of compromise and bipartisanship”).
  2. S.I. Becher, B. Alarie, ‘Superjustice. Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence’, Oxford 2026, pre-order available (the book aims to provide “the first comprehensive theoretical and practical framework for understanding and implementing AI-driven legal transformation”).
  3. Heidelberg Journal of International Law published its first issue in 2026. It focuses and introduces several articles on the topic of ’70 years of EU law’.
  4. M. Baumgärtel, ‘Legal status, civic ­stratification, and the ­structural limit of the human rights of migrants‘, International Journal of Constitutional Law, online first (the author argues that human rights law and institutions use “the framework of civic stratification” in the case of migrants, which “allow[s] states to entrench hierarchical differentiations in ways that directly contradict the principles of universality and equality”).
  5. The Przegląd Prawa Konstytucyjnego [Constitutional Law Review] published an English-language issue on the comparison between Polish and Lithuanian constitutional problems.
  6. Tresor Makunya, Between legal tradition and transformation: Constitutional interpretation of fundamental rights by the Constitutional Courts of Benin, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa (Pretoria University Law Press 2026)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

  1. The 25th Conference of the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy will take place in Kraków (Poland) in September 2026. Those, who are interested, may submit the abstracts by the end of April.
  2. Applications for the Jean Monnet Intensive Summer School 2026 on Participation, Lobbying and Transparency in the EU Institutions are open up to May 10th.
  3. The submissions for the Workshop on Absolute Rights under the ECHR at State Borders (November 2026, Nurnberg, Germany) are welcomed by May 10th.
  4. This year’s theme of the Critical Legal Conference is: “Protocols”. Stream proposals may be sent by April 27th.
  5. Summer School Frontiers of Children’s Rights is being organized by Leiden University. Applicants are more than welcome to submit their CV and cover letter to the organizers.
  6.  Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg, Germany invites applications for the Barbara Huber Scholarship Program, for scholars working on criminology, public security, criminal law, and fundamental legal research. The deadline for applications is 31 May 2026.

Elsewhere Online

  1. M. van den Brink, ‘A Constitutional Court without a Constitutional Compass. Reflections on Commission v Hungary’, Verfassungsblog (24 April 2026).
  2. J. Emtseva, L. Seidl, ‘The Board of Peace Ltd. A Corporate Solution to Global Crises’, Völkerrechtsblog (20 April 2026).
  3. I.A. Siddiq, ‘A Mandate Deferred: The Ruling Party’s Obstruction of Constitutional Reform in Bangladesh‘, ConstitutionNet (15 April 2026).
  4. J. Weiler, ‘On My Way Out – Advice to Young Scholars IX: Blurbs’, EJIL:Talk! (21 April 2026).
  5. V. Miyandazi, M. Njoroge, ‘When Parliament Drags its Feet, Can the Courts Step In? What are the Limits, if Any?’, ICONnect Blog (22 April 2026).

Leave a Reply