What’s New in Comparative Public Law

—Angélique Devaux, French Qualified Attorney (Notaire Diplômée), LL.M American Law (IUPUI Robert H. McKinney School of Law)

In this weekly feature, I-CONnect publishes a curated reading list of developments in comparative 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 comparative public law blogosphere.

To submit relevant developments for our weekly feature on “What’s New in Comparative Public Law,” please email contact.iconnect@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. A federal appeals court ruled Mississippi abortion law unconstitutional.
2. The French Constitutional Court validated the law “for real equality between men and women” including a relaxation of the abortion law [Press Release in French].
3. Uganda’s Constitutional Court voids anti-homosexuality law.
4. Wisconsin  Supreme Court ruled that public workers have no constitutional rights to organize and bargain collectively.
5. A federal appeals court ruled that Virginia’s gay marriage ban is unconstitutional.

In the News

1. EUI President and ICON Editorial Director Joseph Weiler comments on nationalism and European integration.
2. The Dutch Cabinet has approved a proposal to amend the constitution to provide greater protection to telecommunications.
3. Macedonia’s Parliament has agreed to consider proposed constitutional amendments to effectively ban gay marriage and impose limits on public debt.
4. Tunisia reopens reopens its main border crossing with Libya.
5. Yahoo takes copyright law to German Court.
6. A Peruvian court orders US mining firm to pay $163 million fine for environmental damage.
7. The Japanese Supreme Court rules that foreigners in Japan with permanent residency status are not guaranteed to receive social welfare benefits under existing law.

New Scholarship

1. The new issue of the European Journal of Legal Studies (EJLS) is available here. The contributions target current topics from International and European Law, ranging from an analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s case law on intelligence agents, to a proposal for the regulation of Bitcoin, and a critical look at the EU’s response to the financial crisis.
2. Mario Goldani, The Politics of Global Legal Pluralism, Working Paper (arguing that the politics promoted by global legal pluralists is shallow and cannot account either for its own reflexivity or for the staging of political disagreement.)
3. Peter L. Lindseth, Equilibrium, Demoi-Cracy, and Delegation in the Crisis of European Integration, 15 German Law Journal 529 (2014) (arguing that we should be hesitant about deploying a “constitutionalist” terminology—whether qualified as “plural,” “multilevel,” “heterarchical,” or otherwise—to describe European integration, and suggesting that European governance can be understood as a supranational extension of administrative governance as it emerged over the course of the twentieth century—or as an “administrative, not constitutional” phenomenon)
4. Tonja Jacobi & Eugene Kontorovich, Why Judges Always Vote, 2 Revista Forumul Judecătorilor 80 (2013) (providing the first account, using models of spatial competition, of the practice of universal voting on the Supreme Court)
5. Mario Cajas-Sarria, Alfonso López Pumarejo y la última Corte Suprema de Justicia de la hegemonía conservadora, 1934-1935 (Alfonso López Pumarejo and the Last Supreme Court of the Conservative Hegemony, 1934-1935) 40 Revista de Derecho, julio-diciembre de 2013, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla (Colombia) (examining the strategic behavior of a Supreme Court dominated by an overwhelming majority of conservative justices in 1934-35) [Document is in Spanish]

Calls for Papers

1. The Working Group of Young Scholars in Public International Law has issued a Call for Papers for a conference on “The Transnational in International Law,” to take place at the University of Bremen on March 25-27, 2015.
2. The Lex Mercatoria Publica Project at the Max Planck Institute has issued a Call for Papers on “The (Comparative) Constitutional Law of Private-Public Arbitration” to be held on 21-22 November 2014 in Heidelberg.
3. Harvard Law School’s Institute for Global Law and Policy is accepting applications for its annual workshop in Doha, Qatar, January 4-11, 2015
4. The British Legal History has issued a Call for Papers for a conference to be held at the University of Reading, United Kingdom between 8 and 11 July 2015.
5. Lisbon Centre for Research in Public Law has issued a Call for Papers for an international workshop on “Global Administrative Law and The Concept of Law” to be in held at the University of Lisbon School of Law on 28^th November, 2014.
6. The board of Editors of Trade, Law and Development invites unpublished manuscripts for publication in the Winter‘14 Issue of the Journal (Vol. 6, No. 2) in the form of Articles, Notes, Comments, and Book Reviews.
7. International Journal of Law and Legal Jurisprudence Studies invites unpublished manuscripts for publication in Volume 1 Issue 5 in the form of Case Comments, Legislative Comments, Short Articles, Long Articles and Book Reviews.

Elsewhere on Blogs

1. Brazil: Reforms Fail to End Torture, Further Steps Needed to Protect Detainees, Human Rights Watch
2. Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo, The Quest for Constitutional Review in Ghana, Constitutionnet.org
3. David Post, Are Internet domain names “property”, The Washington Post
4. Scott Sayare, French Families Challenge Doctors on Wrenching End-of-Life Decisions, The New York Times
5. Lawrence Downes, The Great Colorado Weed Experience, The New York Times
6. Michael Crittenden and Colleen Mccain Nelson, U.S. House Authorizes Lawsuit Against Obama in 225-201 Vote, The Wall Street Journal