What’s New in Public Law

—Simon Drugda, PhD Candidate at the University of Copenhagen

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

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

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivers a ruling in the high-profile case Wightman and Others v Secretary of State for Exiting the EU; one day before the UK parliament votes on the Withdrawal Agreement.
2. The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation upheld a decision on the demarcation of border between the Republics of Ingushetia and Chechnya.
3. The Constitutional Court of Zambia ruled that President Edgar Lungu can stand in presidential elections due in 2021 without breaching a constitutional two-term limit.
4. The Constitutional Court of Turkey found that a lower court decision banning access to an online article about sexual abuse allegations violates freedom of press and expression.

In the News

1. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) of India imposed a penalty of 500 million Indian Rupees on the state government of Karnataka for failing to protect lakes in its capital city of Bangalore.
2. The Multinational Electoral Tribunal (OEP) of Bolivia decided to allow President Evo Morales to stand for a fourth term in office.
3. Advocate General at the CJEU Campos Sánchez-Bordona authored an opinion finding that the UK can unilaterally revoke its notification of withdrawal from the EU.
4. The Parliament of Lesotho adopted a constitutional amendment to allow dual citizenship.
5. The President of Mexico proposed a constitutional amendment to end presidential immunity.
6. A majority of Sudanese legislators support a constitutional amendment to extend presidential term limits.
7. The lower house of the Parliament of Ireland approved a bill legalizing elective abortion in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. The bill now moves to the upper legislative house for a debate.

New Scholarship

1. Emre Turkut, Accommodating Security Imperatives v. Protecting Fundamental Rights: The Challenge of States of Emergency in the Context of Countering Terrorism in Turkey (forthcoming 2018) (providing an analysis of the state of emergency practices in the fight against terrorism in Turkey)
2. Jaka Kukavica, National Consensus and the Eighth Amendment: Is There Something to be Learned from the United States Supreme Court, in Panos Kapotas and Vassilis P Tzevelekos (eds.), Building Consensus on European Consensus: Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights in Europe and Beyond (forthcoming 2019) (examining the consensus analysis of the US Supreme Court in its Eighth Amendment jurisprudence)
3. Vladislava Stoyanova, The Disjunctive Structure of Positive Rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, Nordic Journal of International Law 3 (2018) (examining how the European Court of Human Rights deals with the disjunctive structure of positive rights and how it addresses alternative protective measures that could have been extended)
4. Oliver Gerstenberg, Euroconstitutionalism and its Discontents (2018) (examining the question of social constitutionalism, especially with regard to its role in the contemporary European project)
5. Frank Vibert, Making a 21st Century Constitution: Playing Fair in Modern Democracies (2018) (examining the ways in which constitutions may be made suitable for the the 21st century)

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. The University of Aberdeen, in collaboration with the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie program, invites applications for six Early Stage Researcher (PhD) positions for groundbreaking research on how political concepts emerge and are used in the world. The deadline for applications is January 20, 2019.
2. The University of Illinois, University of Bologna, and Johns Hopkins Center for Constitutional Studies and Democratic Development invite submissions for the Fourth Illinois-Bologna conference on “Constitutional History: Comparative Perspectives,” to be held in Chicago on April 29- 30, 2019. The focus of the conference is on “Uses of History in Constitutional Adjudication.” The for paper proposals is December 15, 2018.
3. Stanford Law School invites applications for its Twelfth International Junior Faculty Forum (IJFF). The deadline for abstract submission is February 15. 2019.
4. The Indian Journal of Constitutional & Administrative Law (IJCAL) invites submissions of papers for its third volume. The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2018.
5. The Portsmouth Law School at the University of Portsmouth and the European University Institute (EUI) invite submissions for an international conference on “Corruption Democracy and Human Rights: Exploring new avenues in the fight against corruption,” to be held in Florence, on June 20-21, 2019. The deadline for submission of abstracts is February 26, 2019.
6. Odile Ammann convenes a workshop on “Lobbying and Domestic Lawmaking Processes: Do Lobbies Strengthen or Undermine Dignity, Democracy and Diversity?” at the 29th World Congress of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland, to be held on July 7-13, 2019. Researchers interested in participating in this workshop can send a short abstract to ammann@rwi.uzh.ch by March 1, 2019.

Elsewhere Online

1. Lorne Neudorf, Scrutinising Legislative Reform Orders: The Case of the Horserace Betting Levy, UK Constitutional Law Association
2. Chloé Brière, The Advocate-General Opinion in Wightman: Article 50 Notification to Withdraw from the European Union is Unilaterally Revocable, European Law Blog
3. Piotr Bogdanowicz and Maciej Taborowski, Why the EU Commission and the Polish Supreme Court Should not Withdraw their Cases from Luxembourg, Verfassungsblog
4. Mark Elliott, Civil legal aid as a constitutional imperative: A response to Lord Sumption, Public Law for Everyone
5. Susan Rose-Ackerman and Lena Riemer, What’s Really Wrong with the Census, Balkinization
6. Roy Ulrich, A Progressive Call for a Constitutional Convention, JURIST
7. Anne Peters and Raffaela Kunz, Voting down international law? Lessons from Switzerland for compensatory constitutionalism, Völkerrechtsblog
8. Giovanni Di Cosimo, The transformations of Italian parties, IACL-AIDC Blog
9. Pierre de Vos, Supreme Court of Appeal gets the law very wrong in a hate speech judgment, Constitutionally Speaking
10. Gabrielle Appleby, Another Stop on the Road to Meaningful Constitutional Recognition, AUSPUBLAW
11. Mariyam Zulfa, Constitutional reform in Maldives: Towards a parliamentary system of government and decentralization?, ConstitutionNet