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. Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled ban on marijuana use unconstitutional.
2. In Colombia, the Constitutional Court lifts limits on the right to adopt.
3. Spain’s Constitutional Court allows Catalonia’s pro-independence proposal to proceed.
4. The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on racial discrimination in jury selection.
5. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal over the birth control mandate.

In the News

1. The Northern Ireland Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) filed a petition of concern to block passage of marriage law.
2. The Iraqi Parliament votes to limit prime minister’s power to reform.
3. The French government lifted the ban on blood donations.

New Scholarship

1. Fu Hualing, Building Judicial Integrity in China, Hastings International and Comparative Law Review (forthcoming 2015) (arguing that judicial reform in China is possible given the degree of rule of law permitted in China’s authoritarian system.)
2. Brant J. Hellwig, The Constitutional Nature of the United States Tax Court, Virginia Tax Review (forthcoming) (examining the nature of the United States Tax Court in the constitutional scheme of government.)
3. Gordon Silverstein, Singapore’s Constitutionalism: A Model, But of What Sort?, 100 Cornell Law Review (2015) (responding to Mark Tushnet’s recent paper on “Authoritarian Constitutionalism”)
4. Emerson Gabardo, Understanding Brazilian Administrative Law, the Related Literature, and Education: A Comparison with the System in the United States, 9 ICL Journal (2015) (comparing how administrative law teaching and scholarship in Brazil and the United States.)
5. Christopher McCrudden, Why Do National Court Judges Refer to Human Rights Treaties? A Comparative International Law Analysis of CEDAW, American Journal of International Law (forthcoming) (providing a comparative analysis of The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW))

Call for Papers

1. The Irish Society of Comparative Law has issued a call for papers of its 2016 Annual Conference to be held on 23-24 May 2016 in Galway, Ireland.
2. The Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies at Melbourne Law School invites submissions for an IACL roundtable about “The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective” to be held in Melbourne on 2-3 May 2016.
3. The Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law (CJICL) is now welcoming submissions for its new volume.
4. Columbia Law School, the University of Southern California Center for Law, History & Culture, UCLA School of Law, and Georgetown University Law School invite submissions for the twelfth meeting of the Law & Humanities Junior Scholar Workshop, to be held at UCLA School of Law in Los Angeles, California on June 6 and 7, 2016.
5. The Indian Journal of International Economic Law (IJIEL) is now accepting submissions for its new volume.

Elsewhere on Blogs

1. Shubhankar Dam, Collegium 2.0: How should India appoint its judges?, Quartz
2. Jónatas E.M. Machado, Is Portugal living on a constitutional edge?, Constitution Making & Constitutional Change
3. Ruth Delbaere, Monthly Overview – October 2015, BelConLawBlog
4. Babak Siavoshy, What the Spokeo Argument tells us about the Future of Information Privacy Law, ConcurringOpinions
5. Peter C. Oliver, Canada: Election 2015, UKConLawAssociation