Skip to main content

What’s New: Week of May 11

—Erick Guapizaca,  Lecturer, Universidad Internacional del Ecuador; SJD Candidate, University of Michigan Law School 

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. Spain’s Constitutional Court admitted the central government’s constitutional challenge against parts of Valencia’s 2025 reform of the regional Trans Law and suspended the challenged provisions. The suspended provisions amended several parts of Valencia’s 2017 law on gender identity and expression. The government argues that the reform may violate state powers over equality, health, education, and basic rights, including the national 2023 Trans and LGTBI Law. The challenge focuses especially on provisions concerning minors, education, and the regulation of “conversion therapies.” 
  2. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld a federal law that limits parliamentary privilege for members of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. In an 8-1 ruling, the Court held that Parliament can impose a narrow restriction on committee members’ freedom to disclose classified information even though MPs and senators usually have immunity for statements made in Parliament. The Court confirmed that members of the committee can face criminal penalties for improperly revealing protected national security information.
  3. The Constitutional Court of Ecuador conditionally approved the Ecuador-UAE investment treaty, including its investor-state dispute settlement clause. The Court held that Article 422 of Ecuador’s Constitution does not categorically prohibit treaty-based investment arbitration, as long as the treaty excludes contractual or commercial disputes between Ecuador and private persons from international arbitration. The Court required the treaty to be amended to include that exclusion and ordered the amended text to be returned for judicial verification before ratification. 
  4. New South Wales’ Court of Appeal unanimously struck down anti-protest laws adopted after the Bondi terrorist attack. The laws allowed police to restrict protest marches in designated areas for 14 days after a terrorism declaration, but the Court held that the scheme was too broad and violated Australia’s implied freedom of political communication. 
  5. The Constitutional Chamber of the Costa Rican Supreme Court partially granted a constitutional appeal against the Ministry of Environment and Energy and the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity. The Court held that the authorities breached their duties by allowing bare electrical wiring in new construction projects in Nosara, Guanacaste, which created electrocution risks for arboreal wildlife such as howler monkeys. 

In the News

  1. Peru held general elections on April 12, but the final results are still unclear. Peru’s National Jury of Elections has requested a comprehensive IT audit of the results to maintain confidence in the results, while EU observers said they found no evidence of fraud.
  2. President Trump announced on social media website Truth Social that the United States of America rejects Iran’s response to their peace proposal.
  3. A South Korean appeals court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to seven years in prison, for obstruction of justice and other charges, finding that he bypassed the legal mandate for a full Cabinet meeting before imposing martial law in 2024, and reversing a partial acquittal by a lower court. He has already received a life sentence for rebellion, which he has appealed.
  4. Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he will file a criminal lawsuit against Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa after Noboa alleged that Petro had ties to one of Ecuador’s most powerful criminal organizations, amid an ongoing diplomatic and trade crisis that has involved the imposition of tariffs and suspension of energy sales.

New Scholarship

  1. Lucas Lixinski, The Neocolonial Political Economy of Traditional Culture, 29 J. Int’l Econ. L. 165 (2026) (arguing that legal regimes governing traditional culture reproduce neocolonial political economy by forcing Indigenous culture into either property-based commercialization or state-centered heritage protection, both of which limit Indigenous control over cultural and economic life)
  2. Ali Hakim & Kate Yoon, The Citizen as Creditor: Pensioners in Sovereign Debt Crises, 21 Cap. Mkts. L.J. (2026) (arguing that pensioners deserve closer attention in sovereign debt crises because financialized pension systems make workers and retirees creditors of the state through sovereign bond holdings, while fiscal distress also exposes their statutory pension entitlements to cuts, delays, or devaluation)
  3. Michael Coenen, The Shaky Structural Foundations of the New Nondelegation Doctrine, 27 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 1104 (2026) (arguing that Justice Gorsuch’s defense of the nondelegation doctrine oversimplifies its relationship to liberty, minority political power, and democratic accountability, and claims that proponents of a stronger nondelegation doctrine have not yet justified such a broad doctrinal reform)
  4. Roger Merino, Extractivism as Nationalism: Deciphering the Imaginaries and Discourses of Resource Nationalism, J. Dev. Stud. (2026) (arguing that resource nationalism in Peru operates as a neoliberal discourse that links mining, agro-export, and oil extraction to nation-building, international pride, and the supposed inevitability of extractive development)
  5. Stefan Griller, Proportionality: A Constitutional Principle for Demarcating “Monetary” and “Economic” Policy?, Int’l J. Const. L. (2026) (arguing that proportionality should not be used to demarcate EU monetary and economic policy competences, siding with the CJEU over the German Federal Constitutional Court while noting that the institutional conflict remains unresolved and could return)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

  1. St. Mary’s University School of Law invites applications for its 2027 Business and Human Rights Scholars-in-Residence Pipeline Program. Applications are due by 15 June 2026.
  2. The Permanent Court of Arbitration’s Ha Noi Office invites applications for one Assistant Legal Counsel position and two full-time Case Manager positions, with start dates between June and September 2026. Applications are due by 5 May 2026 for the Assistant Legal Counsel position and by 15 May 2026 for the Case Manager positions.
  3. The University of Oxford Faculty of Law invites applications for a full-time, fixed-term Departmental Lecturer in Public International Law. Applications are due by midday on 26 May.
  4. Leiden University College and the Erasmus Center of Law and Digitalization invite abstracts for a two-day workshop on “Digital and AI Governance at a Time of Geopolitical Upheaval,” to be held on 15 and 16 October 2026. Abstracts are due by 12 June 2026.
  5. The Global Migration Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University invites applications for its Winter School, to be held in Toronto from 9 to 13 November 2026. Applications are due by 17 May 2026.
  6. Luísa Neto (University of Porto / President of the National Portuguese Institute of Administration), et al, invite expressions of interest for an edited volume, Public Administration and the Rule of Law: How Good Courts Create Good Governance (Palgrave Macmillan). The deadline for submission of expressions of interest is 24 May 2026.
  7. The Baltic Journal of Law and Politics invites scholars to contribute to a special issue on Constitutional Resilience in Central and Eastern Europe. The submission deadline is 1 September 2026.

Elsewhere Online

  1. Ryan Shaw, The Supreme Court Empowered a Specialty Court to Decide the Fate of Trump’s Trade Agenda, Notice & Comment (A blog from the Yale Journal of Regulation and ABA Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice (Mar. 19, 2026).
  2. Renée Ramona Robinson, The Race Ceiling and the Transatlantic Slave Trade Resolution: What the UNGA Vote Reveals About International Law’s Epistemic Community, Opinio Juris (May 8, 2026)
  3. Sebastián Espinosa Velasco, The Rule of Lawyers: The Return of Ecuador to ISDS, Young IFILA Blog (Apr. 28, 2026).
  4. Lukas Graute, Security Sells: El Salvador’s Mega Prison as an Export Model, Verfassungsblog (May 4, 2026).
  5. John H. Knox, Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change, Advisory Opinion, 120 Am. J. Int’l L. 346 (2026).

Leave a Reply