— Erick Guapizaca Jiménez, incoming Judicial Fellow, International Court of Justice
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
- Turkey’s Constitutional Court has ruled that prison authorities violated an inmate’s freedom of expression by preventing him from giving a visitor a handmade bracelet in traditional Kurdish colors. Tufan İlbaş challenged the restriction after lower courts upheld it. The Court found no pressing social need, ordered a retrial, and awarded damages.
- Italy’s Constitutional Court has ruled that legally resident foreign nationals receiving disability pensions are entitled to free enrollment in the National Health Service. The Court interpreted immigration legislation to prevent discriminatory exclusion, grounding access in equality, human dignity, and the constitutional right to health.
- The Philippine Supreme Court has ruled that mandatory continuous tracking and electronic catch reporting for commercial fishing vessels were unconstitutional. Three fishing companies challenged the Fisheries Administrative Order. The Court found no express statutory basis for round-the-clock tracking and held that the regulation failed rational-basis review and violated equal protection and procedural due process.
- The South African Constitutional Court has blocked Shell and Impact Africa’s offshore exploration plans following a challenge by Wild Coast communities and environmental groups. The Court invalidated the exploration rights because authorities failed to conduct meaningful consultation or adequately assess cultural, livelihood, marine, and climate harms.
In the News
- South Korean President Lee Jae Myung supported a constitutional amendment establishing a four-year, two-term presidency and transferring additional appointment and oversight powers to the National Assembly.
- President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, prompting Seoul to reaffirm the alliance while pursuing greater military self-reliance.
- A Russian double-tap strike on a shopping mall in Kryvyi Rih killed at least sixteen people and injured more than 130, while the second wave targeted emergency responders.
- Kazakhstan will hold snap parliamentary elections on August 23 under its new Constitution, which replaced the bicameral legislature with a unicameral Kurultai and created a vice-presidency.
- Guinea-Bissau will hold an August 30 constitutional referendum proposing stronger presidential dissolution powers, a smaller Parliament, a mixed electoral system, and a Constitutional Court.
New Scholarship
- Kelsey Jost-Creegan, “Insurgent Until Proven Innocent: Land, Power, and the Right to Defend Rights,” 47 Michigan Journal of International Law 421 (2026) (developing a counterinsurgency typology from forty Latin American case studies concerning violence against land and environmental defenders).
- Samuel R. Bagenstos, “The Crisis of Appropriations Law,” 103 Washington University Law Review 1719-1765 (2026) (examining executive impoundment, the Impoundment Control Act, and Congress’s institutional capacity to enforce the constitutional power of the purse).
- Richard Albert (ed.), Multi-Textual Constitutions of the World (Hart Publishing, forthcoming October 2026) (examining how constitutional orders composed of multiple authoritative texts operate across twelve jurisdictions).
- Mila Versteeg, “Empirical Constitutional Studies: The State of the Field,” 24 International Journal of Constitutional Law 9-71 (2026) (surveying constitutional datasets, causal inference, experimental research, and mixed methods).
- Rifat Azam, “The United States, China, and the OECD-UN Rivalry: Asymmetric Regime Complexity in Global Tax Governance,” 120 American Journal of International Law 445-491 (2026) (analyzing competing OECD and UN authority through the positions of the United States, China, and developing states).
Calls for Papers and Announcements
- The ASIL-Midwest Interest Group of the American Society of International Law invites submissions for its works-in-progress programming on international law and related fields. Abstracts are due by 4 September 2026.
- The XVIII International Conference on Natural Law invites papers on freedom of expression in the digital era. Relevant topics include platform responsibility, disinformation, artificial intelligence, and comparative technology regulation. Abstracts are due by 15 September 2026.
- Universidade Católica Portuguesa’s Faculty of Law invites submissions for the conference “Ethics in the EU’s AI Act”. The conference will take place in Lisbon on 29 January 2027. Abstracts are due by 16 October 2026.
Elsewhere Online
- Fernando J. Loayza-Jordán and Paolo Barrero-Lira, “Repartijas and Judicial Independence in Peru,” I•CONnect (20 August 2026).
- Natia Navrouzov, “The Missing Perpetrator and the Missing Victim: What France’s First Conviction for the Yazidi Genocide Reveals,” Opinio Juris (21 August 2026).
- M. E. Salamanca-Aguado, “Institutional Discretion, Due Process and the Common Heritage of Humankind: The First Provisional Measures Orders in NORI and TOML v. the Authority,” EJIL: Talk! (20 August 2026).
- Tímea Drinóczi, “Constitutional Politics in Action, Part II: The Constitutional Court Rejects the Challenges to the 16th and 17th Constitutional Amendments,” Verfassungsblog (20 August 2026).
- Strict Scrutiny, Kate Shaw and Liz Oyer, “All the President’s Henchmen,” Crooked Media (17 August 2026).