What’s New: Week of August 10

– Mikołaj Wolanin, PhD 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. President of the United States issued two executive orders that aim to restrict birthright citizenship, despite the U.S. Supreme Court recent ruling on similar matter.
  2. The bill proposing the 22nd Amendment to the Sri Lanka’s constitution has been officially gazetted and proposed by the government. The amendment, i.a., increases the retirement age of the Supreme Court justices and increases the number of the Court of Appeal judges.
  3. The High Court of Kenya ruled that the presidential elections should be held this month.
  4. There must be a possibility to challenge the sports disciplinary sanctions before the national court, ruled the Court of Justice of the European Union.
  5. A new justice of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal has been sworn in despite the fact that four previously appointed justices still await to take their oath.

In the News

  1. The Senate (the second chamber of the parliament) inaugurated its first session in Benin.
  2. The official name of Nauru (Pacific island) has been changed to the Republic of Naoero.
  3. Zambian presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on August 13th.
  4. Hungary’s National Assembly will elect the new President on August 11th.
  5. A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $567M into a fund that aims to protect the children and teenagers.

New Scholarship

  1. L. Wu, ‘The endurance of interim constitutions’, International Journal of Constitutional Law (2026) (proposing a typology of constitutions based on their temporality; one of the author’s conclusions says that “two-thirds of the interim constitutions surveyed exceeded their deadlines for replacement”).
  2. J. Johnston, Strategic Open Justice. How Courts Communicate (Cambridge 2026) (“an analysis of how contemporary open justice developed and changed” with the exploration of the key changes in the courts’ communication forced by the media and technology).
  3. F.G. Nicola, Misuses of Comparative Law in International Development (Cambridge 2026) (the book “examines how comparative law has been deployed by international organizations, governments, and NGOs to legitimize legal reforms that entrench inequality and reinforce power hierarchies”).
  4. S. Pasarlay, ‘Mandatory Review Provisions in Constitutional Design: An Overview’, The American Journal of Comparative Law (Dec 2026) (exploring the “mandatory periodic review provisions in constitution-making”, while arguing that such mechanisms “allow room for an ongoing process of constitutional evolution and renewal”).
  5. M.A. Rivera León, ‘Supermajority rules in constitutional courts and democratic backsliding: a comparative analysis’, The International Journal of Human Rights 1-22 (examining Mexico, Philippines and Peru – three jurisdictions where the democratic backsliding happened – and comparing the role of the supermajority rules in democratic backsliding in these jurisdictions).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

  1. The Transnational Association of Legal Scholars welcomes applications for the Academy in Advanced Legal Research and Method that will take place in February 2027.
  2. The IACL-AIDC will organize in Warsaw a roundtable on the Parliamentarism and Electoral Systems in the 21st Century. Abstracts may be sent up to 20 August 2026.
  3. Völkerrechtsblog invites participation in a symposium on the Future of the Rules-Based International Order in Latin America and the Caribbean. The deadline for submissions is 7 September 2026.
  4. The Children’s Rights European Academic Network Bi-annual Conference will take place in Geneva in December 2026. Abstracts are welcome up to 4 September 2026.
  5. Comparative Constitutional Studies journal is inviting submissions for their 5.1 (2027) volume. Articles should be sent no later than 1 September 2026
  6. The University of Lausanne invites participation for an upcoming public hybrid roundtable, “Open Constitutional Democracy,” organised at the University of Lausanne on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, from 4:30 to 6:45 pm. Entrance is free, and registration must be completed by 25 August 2026.

Elsewhere Online

  1. J.Z. Naranjo Cáceres, ‘Sworn Elsewhere. De la Espriella’s US Oath and Colombia’s Constitution’, Verfassungsblog (5 August 2026).
  2. S. Jain, ‘Rewriting Presidential Tenure: How Constitutional Amendments Have Become a Tool of Executive Entrenchment in Africa’, OpinioJuris (6 August 2026).
  3. F. Fazekas, A. Kádár, N. Novoszádek, ‘Temporary fixes and long-term commitments: Hungary’s 17th Amendment to the Fundamental Law’, ConstitutionNet (2 August 2026).
  4. A. Guzmán Mutis, ‘In conversation with Iftach Cohen, Co-founder and Co-director of Front-LEX’, Völkerrechtsblog (31 July 2026).
  5. D. Dimitrova, ‘The Spanish Supreme Court on Rejection at the Borders of Ceuta and Melilla: What About Human Rights at Sea?’, EJIL:Talk! (30 July 2026).

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