What’s New in Comparative Public Law

–Angelique Devaux, French Licensed Attorney (Notaire)

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. Spain’s Constitutional Court issued its ruling on the right of pharmacists to refuse to sell the “morning after pill.”
2. Indonesia’s Constitutional Court ruled that serious criminal offenders may run for public office.
3. Florida’s Supreme Court ordered that the legislature must redraw the congressional map.
4. The Colorado Supreme Court held that using public school money for private religious instruction is unconstitutional.
5. The Ohio’s Supreme Court held that Cleveland’s ‘jock tax’ is unconstitutional.

New Scholarship

1. Rivka Weill, The Power of Understatement in Judicial Decisions, Annuaire International de Justice Constitutionnelle (forthcoming 2015) (exploring the recognition of same-sex marriage in Israel)
2. Martin Vranken, Western Legal Traditions. A Comparison of Civil Law and Common Law, Sydney Fderation Press (forthcoming 2015) (providing various building blocks for a discussion of “the law in action,” and addressing the issue of regional globalization and its impact on the traditional divide between civil law and common law)
3. Richard Albert, How Unwritten Constitutional Norms Change Written Constitutions, Dublin University Law Journal (forthcoming 2015) (hypothesizing four ways that constitutional conventions modify written constitutions, and suggesting that one is problematic for democratic rule of law values)
4. Myriam Hunter-Henin, Religion, Children and Employment: The Baby Loup Case, International Comparative Law Quarterly, July 2015 (analyzing the French Cour de Cassation’s plenary Chamber final decision on the Baby Loup case in which it was held that a private nursery had lawfully required one employee to remove her jilhab at work, in accordance with the general religious neutrality requirements under the nursery’s policy)
5. Michael C. Davis, The Basic Law, Universal Suffrage and the Rule of Law in Hong Kong, Hastings International and Comparative Law Review, Vol. 38, No. 2, 2015, (exploring Hong Kong perspectives on the developments and implications for Hong Kong’s autonomy and the rule of law under the “one country, two systems” framework)
6. Yaniv Roznai and Silvia Suteu, The Eternal Territory? The Crimean Crisis and Ukraine’s Territorial Integrity as an Unamendable Constitutional Principle, German Law Journal Vol. 16, No.3, 2015 (probing the limits of formal unamendability with specific reference to the Ukrainian Constitution)

In the News

1. The European Parliament has adopted a resolution on negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
2. Sudan’s Constitutional Court has ordered the reopening of the Port Sudan’s victim case.
3. The U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that federal marriage benefits are available to same-sex spouses.
4. California’s lawmakers ended their efforts to pass a right-to-die bill.

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The NUI Galway Legal and Political Theory Workshop Series is seeking submissions for presenters for the academic year 2015-2016.
2. The Lisbon Centre for Research in Public Law hasissued a call for papers for its “II Lisbon International Workshop on Global Administrative Law: Unity and Diversity of Global Administrative Regimes”, which will take place on December 4th at the University of Lisbon School of Law.
3. The Federalist Society’s Faculty Division is pleased to announce a call for papers on Private International Law, Economics, and Development.  Up to four submissions will be selected for an upcoming Faculty Division colloquium on this topic.
4. The University of Passau, Germany seeks applications for a post-doctoral fellow with specialization in the field of constitutional law, or a legal historian or historian with specialization in the field of constitutional history. The deadline is July 31, 2015.
5. The Finnish Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for papers for its special section on the theme of “Sovereignty, Territory and Jurisdiction.”
6. The California Law Review invites submissions of essay on the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Elsewhere on Blogs

1. Ramola Adeola, The African Youth Charter and the Role of Regional Institutions in an Age of Africa Rising, AfricLaw
2. Xenophon Contiades and  Alkmene Fotiadou, The Greek Referendum: Unconstitutional and Undemocratic, Constitution-Making and Constitutional Change
3. Armaury A. Reyes-Torres, Obergefell and Equal Marriage: A Few Points for a Long Debate, Jurist.org
4. Steven D. Schwinn, No Remedy for Torture Victims, Court Reaffirms, Constitutional Law Prof Blog
5. Shawn Marie Boyne, Teaching Comparative Law in China, Comparative Law Prof Blog