What’s New in Public Law

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–Yacine Ben Chaabane Mousli, Institut Michel Villey, Panthéon-Assas University

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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. McDonald’s loses the EU trade mark Big Mac in respect of poultry products before the Court of Justice of the European Union.
2. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the extraction and use by investigating judge of personal data from a lawyer’s mobile phone violates ECHR Article 8.
3. The European Court of Human Rights finds a violation of Article 6 ECHR when a judicial panel tries a journalist who had previously published articles criticizing the professional qualities and integrity of the reporting and presiding judge for lack of impartiality.
4. The French Constitutional Council protects the right of foreign nationals to legal aid.
5. The German Constitutional Court rejects complaints concerning the minimum voting age for European elections as inadmissible.

In the News

1. European Parliament elections took place from June 6th to 9th across 27 member countries.
2. Amid European election results, French president decides to dissolve the National Assembly.
3. Mexico elected Claudia Scheinbaum as its first female President.
4. On June 5th, the Swiss Senate issued a declaration against the European Court of Human Rights climate ruling.
5. Gambia National Assembly adopts a code of conduct for members with European Union support.
6. Tunisia’s President dismissed the Social Affairs and Interior Ministers, reinforcing the securitarian turn of the State.

New Scholarship

1. Richard Albert, “Why Rawls is Wrong about Constitutional Amendments” (forthcoming), examines Rawls’ hypothetical Twenty-Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution to explore the legal, political, and theoretical terrain of how constitutions change, and how they do not.
2. Sandip Dasgupta, “Legalizing the Revolution. India and the Constitution of the Postcolony” (2024), explores the promises, challenges, and contradictions of India’s constitution making in a postcolonial context.
3. Madiba K. Dennie, “The Originalism Trap. How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We The People Can Take it Back” (2024), discards originalism in favor of inclusive constitutionalism.
4. Rabea Eghbariah, Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept (2024), provides a legal definition of Nakba to encapsulate the ongoing structure of subjugation in Palestine and derive a legal formulation of the Palestinian condition. 
5. Julien Jeanneney, An American Fever. Choosing the Supreme Court Justices (2024), analyses the appointment process of Supreme Court Justices. Introduction can be found here (in French).
6. Leah Trueblood, Referendums as Representative Democracy (2024), argues that referendums support representative democracy institutions.
7. Asia Pacific Law Review, Symposium “Law as an Instrument: Sources of Chinese Law for Authoritarian Legality”.

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The next Italian I•CON conference will take place in Trento on October 18th and 19th, it welcomes submissions on this link until June 15th.
2. The Forum Latin America Initiative from the Max Planck Law Network is organizing a conference that will address the topic “The Law & The Amazon: Challenges for a Sustainable Future” and is open for submission until June, 17th.
3. American Journal of International Law (AJIL) Unbound calls for essays on reparations in International Law.
4. The Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS) at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, is inviting applications for full time researchers.
5. The first French I•CON conference on “Crises and Challenges of Public Law” will take place in Nanterre, on July 5th. Registration is free and mandatory on this link.
6. The Bentham Center organizes an international conference called “Utility, Colonies, and Empires”, reassessing the connections between utilitarianism and empire.

Elsewhere Online

1. The Hamburg Max Planck Institute hosts a reading group on decolonial comparative law. Registration is on this link.
2. The feminist journal “Intersection” published its first edition online (in French).
3. Michał Patryk Sadłowski, “The Role of Administrative Justice before WWII in Poland”, British Association of Comparative Law Blog.
4. Audrey M. Plan, Trans Rights and Gender Recognition before the CJEU, Verfassungsblog.
5. Cécile Guérin-Bargues, Olivier Beaud, Samy Benzina, Security and health states of emergency: a constitutional, historical and critical study, Authors interview from the International Association of Constitutional Law.
6. The International Association of Constitutional Law calls for expressions of interest to join the IACL Blog as Assistant Editor.