What’s New in Comparative Public Law

–Mohamed Abdelaal, Alexandria University (Egypt)

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. The German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled that the 3% electoral threshold for German parties in the European elections was unconstitutional.
2. The US Supreme Court ruled that military commanders have broad property rights to keep protesters off their installations.
3. Texas judge invalidates gay marriage ban.
4. The 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a California school that banned US flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo did not violate constitutional rights of students.
5. Hungary’s Constitutional Court struck down the country’s 98% tax on severance pay finding it against the protection of ownership.

In the News

1. Indonesian House of Representatives agrees to expert team for selecting constitutional court justices.
2. French opposition appealed to the Constitutional Council to stop rent controls.
3. Turkish opposition challenges law tightening grip on judiciary.
4. Uganda passes Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
5. Ukrainian Parliament votes to return old constitution.
6. California Attorney General Kamala Harris appealed a federal decision holding that restrictions on carrying a concealed handgun are unconstitutional.
7. Ruling against Texas’ gay marriage ban may set up Supreme Court fight.

New Scholarship

1. Ioanna Tourkochoriti, Should Hate Speech be Protected? Group Defamation, Party Bans, Holocaust Denial and the Divide Between (France) Europe and the United States, 45 Columbia Human Rights Law Review (forthcoming 2014) (proposing a philosophical approach justifying punishment for group defamation while opposing party banning and criminalizing the contestation of historical facts)
2. Conor O’Mahony, If a Constitution is Easy to Amend, Can Judges Be Less Restrained? Rights, Social Change and Proposition 8, 27 Harvard Human Rights Journal (Forthcoming, 2014) (exploring whether constitutional courts might justifiably adopt a more active and aggressive posture towards rights protection in jurisdictions where the constitution is easier to amend, and where a majoritarian response is a more realistic prospect in the event of a genuinely counter-majoritarian court decision through the lens of the case law preceding and following the enactment of Proposition 8, which constitutionally prohibited same-sex marriage in California.)
3. Michael J. Perry, Adjudicating Rights-Based Constitutional Claims: The Morality of Human Rights and the Power of Judicial Review, Emory Legal Studies Research Paper No. 14-271 (2014) (arguing that the constitutionality of capital punishment or of excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage relies on a particular understanding of how the judiciary determines whether a right claimed to be a constitutional right has constitutional status and whether the challenged government action violates the right.)
4. Tom Ginsburg & Alberto Simpser, Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes (Cambridge University Press, 2014) (A volume of essays that provide insights into the institutions of authoritarian regimes as well as the concept of accountability in their constitutions.)
5. Sami Zemni, The Extraordinary Politics of the Tunisian Revolution: The Process of Constitution Making, Taylor Francis Online (2014) (provides a comprehensive historical background to the path of the 2011 Tunisian Revolution and the challenges that faced the process of constitution making.)
6. Karla Mari McKanders, Anatomy of an Uprising: Women, Democracy, and the Moroccan Feminist Spring, 32 Boston University Int’l Law Journal 151 (2014) (examines how the feminist perspective impacted the Arab Spring in Morocco and how women conceptualize their status in revolutionary movements for a democratic society.)

Call for papers

1. The Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (MCRG) and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) invite submissions for “Gender, Empowerment and Conflict in South Asia Conference” to be held in Kolkata, India (7-8 November, 2014).
2. The Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law has issued a call for papers for its 22^nd Annual Conference “Towards International Peace through International Law” to take place on July 3-5, 2014, in Canberra.
3. The Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth is issuing a call for original research papers to be presented at the Seventh Annual Conference on Innovation Economics, which will take place on Thursday, June 19, 2014 at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, IL.
4. The Journal of Telecommunication and Broadcasting Law published by the W.B. National University of Juridical Sciences, India in association with LexisNexis invites submissions for Vol. III.
5. Christ University Law Journal (CULJ) is now accepting submissions for its new volume.

Elsewhere on Blogs

1. Nathan Koppel, Judge Finds Texas Ban on Gay Marriage Unconstitutional, Wall Street Journal Law Blog
2. Eugene Volokh, Copyright meets “Innocence of Muslims”: Ninth Circuit orders removal of movie from YouTube, on copyright grounds, The Volokh Conspiracy
3. William Baude, Opinion analysis: The boundaries of specific jurisdiction, SCOTUSblog
4. Ibrahim Saleh, The Deception of “Arab Spring”: Legal Dilemmas in Egypt, Jurist
5. Joey Fishkin, What is equal opportunity?, Balkinization