What’s New: Week of March 9

—Sarthak Sahoo, Undergraduate Student of Law, Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab

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 Supreme Court of the US has vacated a Court of Appeals stay on a ruling holding that schools must inform parents if their child changes their names and pronouns in school. It found that the parents are likely to succeed owing to their right to guide their children’s religious development.
2. The Supreme Court of the UK has declared ICSID Tribunal awards against foreign States are enforceable in its domestic courts, as ratification of Article 54 of the ICSID Convention would be a waiver of the former’s state immunity.
3. The Supreme Court of Nepal has directed the review of an 1947 tripartite agreement (between Nepal, UK, and India), seeking replacement with a bilateral agreement with the UK on the rights and benefits of Gurkha veterans.
4. The Tokyo High Court (Japan) has upheld the dissolution of the Unification Church, a religious group associated with mass financial exploitation of its followers, as well as with the assassination of Former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.
5. The Western Cape High Court (South Africa) has declared certain parts of the Value-Added Tax Act 1991 as unconstitutional, holding that the power of the determine national taxes cannot be delegated to the Finance Minister.

In the News

1. Somalia has adopted constitutional amendments that open up legislative elections to the people, the representatives of whom may then further elect the President. This moves away from an indirect method of electing the President as prevailing until now.
2. The President of Kosovo has dissolved Parliament and called for snap elections for the third time in just over a year, after legislators missed a deadline to choose a new president before his term ends in April.
3. The National Council of the Swiss Confederation has turned down a proposal codifying perpetual armed neutrality in its constitution by a vote of 128 to 60.
4. Professors Wojciech Sadurski (University of Sydney) and Monika Florczak-Wątor (Jagiellonian University) have been appointed as members of the Venice Commission by Poland.
5. A sitting judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka has approached an Indian High Court against Google and two Sri Lankan publications, seeking removal of certain defamatory content against him. He did not file a suit in Sri Lanka to avoid an apprehension of bias.

New Scholarship

1. Reva Siegel, ‘It’s Alive! When the Original Meaning of “Person” Protected by the Fourteenth Amendment Is Not a Fixed, But Living Word’ UC Davis Law Review (forthcoming 2026)
2. Terry Skolnik, ‘Two cultures of justification in constitutional law’ International Journal of Constitutional Law (2026)
3. Xu Wang and Andreas Wiebe, ‘On the Concept of Chinese Data Property Law – A Third Way?’ GRUR International (forthcoming 2026)
4. Samuya Uma and Parkhi Saxena, ‘Few hits, many misses: the role of the Law Commission of India in ushering gender-just family law reforms’ Indian Law Review (2026)
5. Fatima Osman and Anopa Tamuka Murambiwa, ‘The new era of discarded wives in South African customary law and the way forward’ International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family (2026)
6. Benjamín Alemparte, “Privatizing Social Rights: The Law and Political Economy of Chile’s Pension Transformation,” German Law Journal (2026)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria and Monash University Faculty of Law invites papers on the theme of ‘Landmark Judgments & Rewriting Judgments of AU human rights bodies, including the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child’ for a conference on on 25 to 26 June 2026 at the University of Pretoria (Future Africa) campus. Abstracts (250–300 words) are invited by 31 March 2026.
2. The NALSAR Law Review invites submissions for Volume 11 of its Journal by 31 March 2026.
3. The Centre for Law and Security at the University of Copenhagen invites paper proposals for a conference on its campus on 27 to 28 August 2026 on the theme of ‘Law and Security’. Abstracts (400 words) are invited by 1 May 2026.
4. The Touro Law Review invites submissions for a special issue on Legal Humour for Volume 41, Issue 5 (expecting publication in July 2027). Submisisons are invited by 1 September 2026.
5. The ICON-S Australia & New Zealand Chapter will be hosting its inaugural conference on the theme of ‘HE MAHI RARANGA: Infusion and Diffusion of Australasian Public Law’ at the Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington from 26 to 28 August 2026. The call for papers for the parallel sessions are open until 9 April 2026.
6. The European Law Unbound Society invites paper and panel submissions for its Annual Conference at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, from 1-3 September 2026.

Elsewhere Online

1. Sabeeh Khayyat, ‘Setting It in Stone’ Verfassungblog (4 March 2026)
2. Pablo Trigo Kramcsák and Barbara Lazarotto, ‘“Personal Data”: More Than a Definition, a Quasi-Constitutional Stake in EU Law in the Era of the Digital Omnibus’ European Law Blog (2 March 2026)
3. Tracy Robinson, ‘The Caribbean’s Dyadic Constitutions’ IACL-AIDC Blog (3 March 2026)
4. Ana Luísa Azevedo Lopes, ‘Article 13 TFEU: Between symbolism and effectiveness, animal sentience in European constitutionalism’ The Official Blog of UNIO (7 March 2026)
5. Juan Pablo Perez, ‘Causation in Climate Change: The International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s Climate Change Advisory Opinion vis-à-vis English Tort Law’ Opinio Juris (3 March 2026)