What’s New in Public Law

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—Chiara Graziani, Research Fellow in Comparative Public Law, University of Milan-Bicocca (Italy) and Academic Fellow, Bocconi University (Italy)

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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 iconnecteditors@gmail.com.

Developments in Constitutional Courts

1. The US Supreme Court  reversed a ruling that allowed several individuals to sue some food corporations over alleged acts of child slavery.
2. The US Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act by a 7-2 vote.
3. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the constitutionality of carbon tax participation requirements for provinces.
4. The Romanian Constitutional Court published the reasoning of a recent decision holding that the Special Section for Magistrates can only be dismantled by Parliament, and not by ordinary courts.
5. The Turkish Constitutional Court will hear an application asking it to dissolve the pro-Kurdish party on terror-related charges.
6. The Egyptian Court of Cassation upheld death penalty for three leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood, classified as a terrorist group by the Egyptian government.

In the News

1. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called for an investigation into activities of the new Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi, alleging crimes against humanity and claiming that states should exercise universal jurisdiction.
2. Japan lifted the state of emergency in some of its prefectures, in preparation for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
3. A new gambling bill has been introduced in Norway, imposing tighter restrictions on unlicensed international betting companies.
4. The European Data Protection Board and the European Data Protection Supervisor issued a joint opinion urging that planned EU regulation on artificial intelligence include a ban on biometric identification in public spaces.
5. The Spanish government pardoned nine jailed Catalan leaders.
6. The Swiss Federal Administrative Court approved the extension of the residence permit for a transgender Mauritian national for important personal reasons.

New Scholarship

1. Heejin Kim, Global Export Controls of Cyber Surveillance Technology and the Disrupted Triangular Dialogue, 70 International and Comparative Law Quarterly (2021) (addressing the issue of the proliferation of cyber surveillance technology as a global policy problem).
2. András L. Pap, Academic Freedom: A Test and Tool for Illiberalism, Neoliberalism, and Liberal Democracy, 26 Brown Journal of World Affairs (2021) (investigating the status and role of academic freedom in (neo)liberal democracies and illiberal regimes).
3. Guillaume Tusseau, Contentieux constitutionnel comparé. Une introduction critique au droit processuel constitutionnel (Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, Lextenso, 2021) (addressing the history of constitutional adjudication, the methodology to be applied in comparative studies of constitutional courts, constitutional complaint procedures as well as many other topics related to constitutional adjudication).
4. John F. Kowal & Wilfred U. Codrington III, The People’s Constitution: 200 Years, 27 Amendments, and the Promise of a More Perfect Union (forthcoming September 2021) (telling the “233-year story of how the American people have taken an imperfect constitution—the product of compromises and an artifact of its time—and made it more democratic”).
5. Arianna Vedaschi, Kim Lane Scheppele (eds.), 9/11 and the Rise of Global Anti-Terrorism Law. How the UN Security Council Rules the World (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) (giving a picture of the complex and evolving interaction between the international, regional and domestic levels in framing counter-terrorism law and policies).
6. Cornelia Weiss, Creating UNSCR 1325: Women who served as initiators, drafters, and strategists, in Rebecca Adami, Dan Plesch (eds.), Women and the UN. A New History of Women’s International Human Rights (Routledge, 2022) (highlighting women from both inside and outside of the United Nations and examining how, in a Security Council composed of almost all men, the first UN Security Council resolution on Women and Peace and Security, UNSCR 1325, was adopted).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. A webinar on “Hong Kong in China, or Hybridity and its Discontents” is being organized at Bocconi University and will be held on June 29, 2021, at 1 PM CET. The event can be accessed here.
2. The DI.SEA.DE Department of the University of Milan-Bicocca, together with the Department of Legal Studies of Bocconi University, under the auspices of the Association “Diritto Pubblico Comparato ed Europeo” and of the law review “Diritto Pubblico Comparato ed Europeo”, are organizing a webinar on “Crisi pandemica o crisi della democrazia? Il principio dello Stato di diritto alla prova dell’emergenza sanitaria” (in Italian). The event will be held on June 30, 2021, at 6 PM CET. The webinar can be accessed here (password “uepandemia”).
3. The International Law Department and the Gender Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva invites contributions for the Virtual Queer Workshop, “International Law Dis/Oriented: Queer Legacies and Queer Futures”, to be held from September 27 to October 1, 2021. Contributions will be accepted until July 2, 2021 at 11.59 PM CET.
4. Submissions are welcome for the Fourth International Symposium of the Indonesian Constitutional Court, to be held on September 14-15, 2021.
5. The DISSECT research project is organizing a webinar on “Evidence and Proof in Proceedings Before the European Court of Human Rights”, to be held on July 5, 2021, at 9:30 AM CET. Those interested should email research.hrc@ugent.be, shortly motivating why they would like to attend the webinar. 
6. Papers are invited for two events on judicial education and on judicial conduct in Ireland, to be held online in September and October 2021. The project is organized by Dr. Laura Cahillane (University of Limerick) and Dr. Rónán Kennedy (NUI Galway), funded by the Irish Research Council and undertaken in conjunction with the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. The deadline for submissions is August 20, 2021.
7. The Milan Law Review (MLR) welcomes the submission of articles on topics belonging to any area of legal scholarship of public international law, private international law and European Union law.  More information is available on the website. The next deadline for submitting papers is October 31, 2021.
8. The World Congress of International Law will be held in Johannesburg on December 5-9, 2022. More information can be found here.

Elsewhere Online

1. Pablo G. Hidalgo, Fiona de Londras and Daniella Lock, Parliamentary Scrutiny of Extending Emergency Measures in the two Scottish Coronavirus Acts: On the Question of Timing, UKCLA Blog
2. Priyanka Jain, No Collective Redress against Foreign Companies in Cases of Purely Financial Damage: Case C-709/19 VEB v. British Petroleum, European Law Blog
3. Haimo Li, The Intellectual Origin of the US Constitution Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3: An Important Contribution from Maryland, Journal of the American Revolution – Constitutional Debate, Critical Thinking, Law
4. Ulisses Levy Silvério dos Reis, Rafael Lamera Giesta Cabral, Military Justice, Journalism and Free Speech in Brazil, Verfassungsblog
5. Centro de Estudios de Seguridad and Tirant Editorial, Democracia y Seguridad. Respuestas para Avanzar en el Sistema Público (ed. J.J. Fernández Rodríguez). Book launch, YouTube
6. David Andrés Viñas, UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy and Humanitarian Action: A Case for Saving Lives, Just Security
7. Lorna Woods, Big Brother Watch v UK: the ECtHR Grand Chamber rules on mass surveillance, EU Law Analysis