What’s New in Comparative Public Law

–Margaret Lan Xiao, Washington University in St. Louis

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. Armenia: The Constitutional Court endorses the constitutionality of the country’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union.
2. Turkey: Constitutional Court rules that some civil servants and institutions accused of biased and unjust behavior in handling a previous murder case should be investigated.
3. Hungary: The Constitutional Court upholds the validity and legality of certain provisions in borrowers’ relief law which prohibits any unilateral changes to loan contracts.
4. Dominican Republic: Various civil society organizations publicly rebuke the Constitutional Court’s previous ruling on the unconstitutionality of the Inter-American Human Rights Court’s jurisdiction.
5. South Africa: The Constitutional Court is going to hear a case relating to a lower court’s ruling that a part of the current Criminal Procedure Act is unconstitutional.

In the News:

1. Guyana: The President has suspended the National Assembly.
2. Somalia: Parliament closed prematurely without official proceedings.
3. South Africa: An extensive brawl broke out in Parliament.
4. German: Parliament proposes an anti-doping law that would jail dopers.
5. Ghana: Parliament is divided over the controversial Interstate Succession Bill.

New Scholarship

1. Benjamin Schonthal, Constitutionalizing Religion: The Pyrrhic Success of Religious Rights in Postcolonial Sri Lanka, Journal of Law and Religion / FirstView Article (arguing that it is not law’s failure that adds to the intensity of religious tensions in Sri Lanka, but rather law’s pyrrhic success)
2. Daniel J. Hulsebosch, The Revolutionary Portfolio: Constitution-Making and the Wider World in the American Revolution, NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 14-56 (arguing that the American constitution-making in the founding era should be viewed with two dimensions of internationalism, one was diplomatic, and the other was cultural and intellectual, and to some extent, the intellectual dimension was autonomous from diplomacy for it engendered a transnational discussion about the optimal forms of institutional design)
3. John Witte Jr., Religion, Emory Legal Studies Research Paper No. 14-314 (arguing that religion is an important source of modern human rights, and surveying the place of religion in modern international human rights)
4. Jason Sorens et al, Arab Spring Constitution-Making: Polarization and State Building, Democratization: Building States & Democratic Processes EJournal Vol. 7, No. 41 (testing the validity of a hypothesis of the existence of a U-shaped relationship between political polarization in the general public and net state capacity-building provisions in constitutions of new democracies)
5. Chien-Chih Lin, Majoritarian Judicial Review: The Case of Taiwan, National Taiwan University Law Review, Vol. 9:1, 2014 (demonstrating the fact that Constitutional Court in Taiwan is indeed a majoritarian court in terms of its docket records and agenda setting, and discovering that judicial self-restraint is indeed counter-majoritarian in Taiwan)

Elsewhere Online

1. Jurgen Goossens et al: Video interview with Prof. Tierney: Should the People decide? The Scottish and Catalonian referenda, Bel Con Law Blog
2. Ryan Mitchell, China’s Reforms: Law Without Rights or Law Without Substance? The Huffington Post
3. Lyle Denniston, Constitution Check: Does the new Obamacare challenge have anything to do with the Constitution? Constitution Daily
4. Dan Harris, How To Handle China’s Economic Slowdown, China Law Blog
5. Richard Socarides, Will the Supreme Court Mandate Gay Marriage?, The New Yorker
6. Betsy Woodruff, The Coming Immigration War, The Slate
7. George Skelton, California Legislature is looking more moderate due to voting reforms, The Los Angeles Times

Call for Papers

1. The International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property has issued a call for papers for a workshop titled “Openness and Intellectual Property” to be held on July 22-24, 2015 at the University of Pennsylvania.
2. Leiden Journal of International Law has issued a call for papers for its symposium of “The Changing Role of Scholarship in International Law” to be held on May 11, 2015 at Hague.
3. Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy (CSSEIP) has issued a call for papers for the Indian National Seminar on “Six Decades of Indian Constitution and Inclusiveness” scheduled to be held in February, 2015 at University of Mysore.
4. The Department of Public Law and Jurisprudence, University of Johannesburg has issued a call for papers for the seminar on The Rule of Law and Sustainable Development to be held on March 25, 2015, at Cape Town.