Author: dlandau
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The Keith Project
–Juliet Bull, Victoria University of Wellington Sir Kenneth Keith, ONZ, KBE, QC is a renowned New Zealand Judge currently serving a nine-year term on the bench of the International Court of Justice. The “Keith Project” is a Victoria University of Wellington initiative which will provide access to Sir Kenneth’s extensive body of extra-judicial writing.
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Libyan Congress Blunders Constitutional Moment
—Lorianne Updike Toler, Esq., Lorianne Updike Toler Consulting & The University of Pennsylvania Law School The April 10 vote by the General National Congress of Libya amending their interim Constitutional Declaration was incredibly short-sighted. Instead of fixing the largest problem with the Declaration, the GNC dealt with the issue for which they were receiving the…
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Egypt’s Constitution: The Religious Pot
–Mohamed Abdelaal, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Alexandria University School of Law Immediately after the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, which ended thirty years of repression and dictatorship under the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians faced the serious challenge of electing a new president and building a new Egypt.
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Bachelet Appoints Group to Study New Constitution for Chile
—Claudia Heiss, Instituto de Asuntos Publicos, Universidad de Chile On April 23rd former President of Chile Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010), the front-runner candidate for the November presidential election, announced a commission to study a new constitution. The group is composed of nine lawyers (including two women) some of whom contributed to the 2005 reform signed by…
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Marry me or tax me? That is the constitutional question
—Angelique Devaux, French Licensed Attorney (Notaire), LL.M. in American Law (Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law) To marry or tax me. This could be the modern Shakespeare quote heard in the oral arguments last March 27th at the US Supreme Court in the pending case Windsor v.
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Ireland’s Constitutional Convention Considers Same-Sex Marriage: Part II
—Eoin Carolan, University College Dublin Ireland’s Constitutional Convention has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a proposal to amend the Irish Constitution to allow for civil marriage for same-sex couples. 79 Convention members favoured the proposal with 19 against and 1 expressing no opinion.
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New Developments on Japan’s Proposed Constitutional Amendment Process
–Tokujin Matsudaira, Kanagawa University Faculty of Law Recently the Asahi Shimbun Weekly (ASW, a special Monday edition of Asahi News) interviewed eight constitutional scholars and asked them to answer a survey about the possible amendment of Japan’s postwar constitution. The results appeared in ASW on April 8 (in Japanese).
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Greece’s Constitutional Revision Dilemmas
–Xenophon Contiades and Alkmene Fotiadou, Centre for European Constitutional Law Greece is about to revise its Constitution. The question is why now and towards which direction. The timing is connected to the prerequisites of the amending formula, which sets a mandatory time lapse between revisions, that is, revision of the Constitution is not permitted within…
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Canada’s Supreme Court upholds hate speech laws
—Carissima Mathen, Associate Professor of Law, University of Ottawa A comparative discussion of North American civil liberties invariably notes that Canada has a more limited scope of protection for freedom of expression than the United States. Nowhere is this more evident that the treatment of hateful expression.