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 Constitutional Court of Germany ruled that obliging email service providers to log and share IP addresses with law enforcement is constitutional.
2. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that bankrupt oil and gas companies in Alberta must use funds to reclaim oil and gas well sites before paying debtors.
3. The European Court of Human Rights held that the Russian government must pay the Georgian government ten million EUR in reparations over the deportation of 1,500 Georgian nationals.
4. The Supreme Court of Venezuela prohibited opposition leader Juan Guaidó from leaving the country.
5. The Slovak Constitutional Court invalidated a 2014 constitutional amendment that established a vetting process for lower court judges and candidates for judicial office.
6. The Constitutional Committee of the Slovak Parliament interviewed 40 nominees for Constitutional Court judges, in the first selection hearings broadcast live in the history of Slovakia. Robert Fico, a three-time PM is one of the candidates.

In the News

1. A senior judge resigned from office on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia claiming political interference.
2. The Irish government has agreed to hold a constitutional referendum to ease the country’s restrictions on divorce after the Parliament.
3. The government coalition in Luxembourg proposes a new constitution.
4. The Parliament of the German state of Brandenburg passed new legislation to boost the number of women in politics. The “parity act” obliges political parties to offer as many female as male candidates for elections, starting in the summer of 2020.

New Scholarship

1. The Journal Verfassung und Recht in Übersee published two special issues on “The Indian Supreme Court in Crisis?” and “Judicial Review and Democratization in Francophone West Africa.”
2. Urszula Jaremba and Juan Mayoral, The Europeanization of national judiciaries: definitions, indicators and mechanisms, 3 Journal of European Public Policy (2019) (critically examining the concept of Europeanization of national judiciaries, whereby national court act as decentralized European Union judges)
3. Benjamin Schonthal, Buddhist Legal Pluralism? Looking again at Monastic Governance in South and Southeast Asia, 3 Buddhism, Law & Society(2018) (looking at the plural interactions of state law and Buddhist law in South and Southeast Asia)
4. Brice Dickson, The Irish Supreme Court: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (2019) (examining the workings and jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Ireland since its creation in 1924)
5. Sergio Verdugo, How Can Judges Challenge Incumbent Dictators and Get Away With It? (2019) (exploring the paradox of compliance with unfavorable judicial decisions in an authoritarian regime)

Call for Papers and Announcements

1. Ghent University in Belgium invites applications for a full-time, tenured Assistant Professorship in Privacy Law. The deadline for applications is February 26, 2019.
2. The Global Citizenship Governance Project, funded by an ERC starting Grant and co-hosted by the European University Institute and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, invites applications for a Research Associate position. The deadline for applications is March 1, 2019.
3. The Centre of Excellence for International Courts (iCourts) and PluriCourts (Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order) organize their 7th PhD Summer School on June 17-21, 2019. The deadline for applications is February 1, 2019.
4. The American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL) invites proposals for concurrent panels and a works in progress conference on the theme “Comparative Law and International Dispute Resolution Processes,” to be at the University of Missouri School of Law on October 17-19, 2019. The submission deadline is May 20.
5. UCD Sutherland School of Law invites applications for the post of an Assistant Professor in Constitutional Law. The deadline for applications is February 25, 2019.
6. The British and Irish Chapter of ICON-S holds its second annual conference on April 24-25, 2019, in Strathclyde. The theme of the conference is “The United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union (?): Domestic and European Constitutional Implications.” The deadline for proposals for papers and panels is February 15, 2019.
7. The National University of the Public Service (NUPS), the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church (KGURC), and the Centre for Parliamentary Studies (CPS) based at the Széchenyi University Győr invite submissions for a conference on “Parliaments, chambers, legislatures.” The deadline for submission of paper proposals is March 15, 2019.
8. Felipe Oliveira de Sousa and Alex Latham organize a special workshop on “Constitutionalism and Disagreement,” to be held on July 7-13, 2019, at the occasion of the IVR Conference 2019. Interested participants should send their abstracts to f.oliveiradesousa@maastrichtuniversity.nl or a.g.latham@swansea.ac.uk by March 1.
9. The Journal of the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies invites submission to the 2019 issue. The deadline for submissions is February 10, 2019.
10. The UCL Journal of Law and Jurisprudence invites submissions for the autumn 2019 issue. The deadline for submissions is March 25, 2019.

Elsewhere Online

1. Andrew Denny, Would a Bill Seeking an Article 50 Extension Require a Money Resolution Proposed by the Government?, UK Constitutional Law Association
2. Mark Elliott, Can the Government veto legislation by advising the Queen to withhold royal assent?, Public Law for Everyone
3. Meg Russel, Should we worry if MPs seize control of the parliamentary agenda?, The Constitution Unit
4. David R. Cameron, House of Commons calls for replacing Irish “backstop” with “alternative arrangements”, Yale MacMillan Center
5. Arthur Dyevre, Have British judges already left the EU? The impact of the Brexit vote on EU law in the UK, LSE Brexit Blog
6. Kangnikoé Bado, Togo’s continuing constitutional crisis and ECOWAS’s failed mediation effort, ConstitutionNet
7. David Pozen, Hardball, Again, Balkinization
8. Malthe Hilal-Harvald, Truth or dare? Blasphemy and the flawed logic of E.S. v. Austria, Völkerrechtsblog
9. Freeke Bendels, Arthur Dossche, Jurgen Goossens, and Sien Devriendt, Urgenda en de scheiding der machten: lost de rechter het klimaatvraagstuk op?, BelConLawBlog
10. Theodora Kostakopoulou, Who Should Be a Citizen of the Union? Toward an Autonomous European Union Citizenship, Verfassungsblog
11. Sebastián Mantilla Blanco, Rival Governments in Venezuela: Democracy and the Question of Recognition, Verfassungsblog
12. Lucy Geddes, Universal jurisdiction to the rescue: a way forward for victims of Franco-era crimes of gender-based violence?, OxHRH
13. Zim Nwokora , Book review: ‘The Politico-Legal Dynamics of Judicial Review: A Comparative Analysis’ by Theunis Roux, IACL-AIDC Blog