What’s New in Public Law

–Nausica Palazzo, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Law (Bocconi University)

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 European Court of Human Rights accepted to consider a case on the removal of children from their “radical Christian” families by the Norwegian government.
2. The Supreme Court of India dismissed a petition seeking to allow Muslim women to enter Mosques for offering prayers.
3. The Constitutional Court of Croatia quashed the rulings of administrative courts holding that former Deputy Prime Minister Karamarko was in a conflict of interest.
4. The Constitutional Court of Turkey declared that the revocation of a certificate of inheritance for loss of citizenship violates the right to property.
5. Amicus briefs in the SCOTUS cases on whether Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ people are now available.
6. The Supreme Court of India will hear arguments on the constitutionality of the article of the Constitution granting special status to status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
7. A Hungarian opposition party filed a petition with the Constitutional Court to review the legality of a Russian investment bank receiving full diplomatic privileges.
8. Prosecutors in Ukraine drafted charges against a former constitutional court judge for the abuse of power to aid former President Yanukovych. Several other sitting and former judges of the Court are being investigated, including in relation to the constitutional unamendability decision of 2004.

In the News

1. A Court of Appeals in Rome sentenced 24 former Latin American officials involved in the death of “desaparecidos” to life imprisonment.
2. Prominent U.S. legal scholars signed a letter endorsing the idea of a constitutional amendment to end life tenure for Supreme Court justices.
3. The UK Parliament passed legislative amendments to extend same-sex marriage and abortion access in Northern Ireland.
4. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction that prevents President Trump from using military funds to build a border wall with Mexico.
5. An independent assessor ruled that the Irish government misinterpreted a decision by the European Court of Human Rights on school sexual abuse by unduly restricting the conditions they must meet for redress.
6. The Parliament of France passed a law to tax large tech companies.
7. California becomes the first state to ban racial discrimination based on a hairstyle in schools and workplaces.
8. Georgia considers postponing the implementation of the proportional electoral system until 2024 by a constitutional amendment.
9. Malaysia considers a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age from 21 to 18.
10. U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo announced the creation of a Commission on Inalienable Rights.
11. The Federal Administrative Court of Germany rejected religious freedom objections of a Sikh man concerning the obligation to wear a helmet on motorcycles.

New Scholarship

1. Cheryl Saunders, International Involvement in Constitution Making (2019) (exploring the tension between various forms of international involvement in constitution-making and national sovereignty, and outlining a more coherent framework for assessing it based on the concept of “national ownership”)
2. Dov Fox, Birth Rights and Wrongs: How Medicine and Technology are Remaking Reproduction and the Law (2019) (mapping the “wrongs” perpetrated by the actors involved in the design and implementation of reproductive rights, including pharmacists, obstetricians, labs, courts and law-makers, and the way they impact on pregnancy or parenthood)
3. Oona A. Hathaway et al., Aiding and Abetting in International Criminal Law, 104 Cornell Law Review (2019) (offering a case law analysis of the definition of complicity under international law to argue that US courts’ interpretation under the Alien Tort Statute is inaccurate)
4. Richard A. Bales & Katherine V.W. Stone, The Invisible Web of Work: The Intertwining of A-I, Electronic Surveillance, and Labor Law, 41 Berkeley Journal of Labor and Employment Law (forthcoming 2019) (exploring how AI mechanisms are impacting practices of hiring, monitoring, and dismissing workers, and the challenges they pose to workers’ protections)
5. Paul P. Craig, General Principles of Law: Treaty, Historical and Normative Foundations, in Katja Ziegler, Päivi Neuvonen, & Violeta Moreno-Lax (eds.), Research Handbook on General Principles of EU Law (forthcoming 2019) (analyzing the controversial concept of “general principles of law” in EU law along three foundational issues: text, historical evolution, and their formal and substantive legitimacy)
6. SpearIt, The Catholic Church Sex Scandal and the Dying Death Penalty: Issues at the Intersection of Religion, Crime, and Punishment (2019) (arguing that opponents of the death penalty should capitalize on recent investigations against the Catholic Church and ally with religious groups to abolish death penalty)

Special Announcement: Batumi School on Constitutional Democracy

Undergraduate and graduate students are invited to participate in the Batumi International Summer School “Constitutional Democracy: Modern Challenges,” to be held on August 18 to 25, 2019, in Batumi, Georgia at the Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University campus. The summer school will feature keynote lectures, seminars, and group discussions on selected topics relating to constitutional democracy. More information is available here. The registration deadline is July 20, 2019.

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. Nominations are welcome for the Mark Tushnet Prize in Comparative Law, presented to an early-career scholar. Details are available here. The deadline is August 1, 2019.
2. The International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism invites submissions for its conference on “Constitution-Making and Constitutional Change” to be held at the University of Texas Law School on January 17-18, 2020. More details are available here.
3. The Younger Comparativists Committee (YCC) of the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL) solicits nominations, including self-nominations, for the annual Richard M. Buxbaum Prize for Teaching in Comparative Law. Early stage scholars in a tenure-track position at an ASCL Member Institution are eligible to apply.
4. The Younger Comparativist’s Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL YCC) invites paper submissions from emerging scholars for a panel at the ASCL’s annual meeting to be held at the University of Missouri Law School in Columbia, Missouri, on October 17-19, 2019. The deadline for submissions is August 10, 2019.
5. Paper submissions to participate in the Fourth Biennial Public Law Conference on “Public Law: Rights, Duties and Powers” are invited. The conference will be held at the University of Ottawa Law School, Common Law Section, on June 17-19, 2020. Abstracts must be submitted by September 2, 2019.
6. The Institute for International Humanitarian Studies of the Aix-en-Provence Law School welcomes submissions for the INSIDE Workshop on “States Compliance with International Human Rights Law,” to be held at Aix-en-Provence Law School on 2 April 2020. The deadline for submission of abstracts is September 20, 2019.
7. The University of Sarajevo and the METU Northern Cyprus invite graduate and postgraduate students to participate in the international summer school on “Current Legal Issues in Post-Conflict and Transitional Societies,” to be held in Kalkanli, North Cyprus, on September 4-11, 2019. 
8. The University of Perugia launched a call for papers and streams for the 2019 Critical Legal Conference on the theme “alienation.” The event will take place on September 12–14, 2019, in Perugia (Italy). The new deadline for submission of abstracts is July 31, 2019.
9. The West Virginia Law Review invites submissions for its Annual Symposium on the tensions between state and local governments, to be held February 27-28, 2020. Abstracts must be submitted by September 3, 2019.
10. Bucerius Law School in Hamburg invites applications from recent JD graduates for the Joachim Herz U.S. Exchange Program for Young Legal Scholars. Candidates should submit their application at least two months prior to the beginning of their proposed research stay.
11. The University of Toronto Law invites application for the position of Director for the International Human Rights Program. Applications are due by July 20, 2019.
12. The team of “Graz Jurisprudence” at the University of Graz invites application for the position of a University Assistant without a doctorate. The deadline for submission of applications is August 7, 2019.

Elsewhere Online

1. David Koppe, Protection of migrants at the borders of law, International Law Blog
2. Suzanne Pepper, Another Hong Kong uprising: defying the sovereign, or a simple demand for local standards of justice?, Hong Kong Free Press
3. Peter van Elsuwege, Empty Seats in the European Parliament: What About EU Citizenship?, Verfassungsblog
4. Max du Plessis, The Sum of Four Fears: African States and the International Criminal Court in Retrospect–Part I, Opinio Juris
5. Lorenzo Leoni, Who should pick party leaders: MPs, members or a wider public?, The Constitution Unit
6. Antônio Sepulveda & Igor De Lazari, Fighting Against Agencies: Trump and Bolsonaro’s Overcrossing Agendas, Notice & Comment
7. Syuzanna Vasilyan, Completing Armenia’s Revolution: Transitional Justice and Judicial Vetting, ConstitutionNet
8. William Aseka, Embracing teenage sexuality: Let’s rethink the age of consent in Ken, AfricLaw
9. Ruthann Robson, Second Circuit: “RealDonaldTrump” Blocking Users on Twitter Violates First Amendment, Constitutional Law Prof Blog
10. Thomas Burri, In the wake of the ICJ’s Opinion in Chagos: Britannia waives the rules, Völkerrechtsblog