What’s New in Public Law

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–Maja Sahadžić, Visiting Professor and Research Fellow, University of Antwerp

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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 Supreme Court of Russia declined to hear the so-called „Gulag Children“ Case.
2. The Constitutional Court of Armenia declared the article dismissing ex-chief of the army’s General Staff constitutional.
3. The Constitutional Court of South Korea rejected the first-ever impeachment of a (retired) judge.
4. The Constitutional Court of St. Maarten rejected a request for austerity measures.
5. The Constitutional Court of Togo approved the mandatory presentation of health passes to access every administrative building.
6. The High Court of Australia found that the higher tax rate for visiting UK workers is discriminatory.
7. The Constitutional Court of Spain temporarily annulled the PlusValía tax or capital gains tax.
8. The Constitutional Court of Spain declared that the second state of alarm to combat the pandemic is unconstitutional.

In the News

1. The Israeli Parliament approved the first state budget in three years.
2. Portugal’s president dissolved the parliament and calls a snap election.
3. The Ethiopian Parliament approved the state of emergency proclamation.
4. A first albino will be sworn into Malawi’s parliament.
5. The Cambodian parliament adopted constitutional amendments prohibiting dual citizenship for top leaders.
6. The Italian Senate blocked a proposed amendment that sought to punish violent acts against members of the LGBTQ+ community.
7. An Australian regulator ordered US software company Clearview AI to delete all collected data.
8. The Chinese new law protecting online user data privacy took effect.

New Scholarship

1. Patricia Popelier, Giacomo Delledonne, and Nicholas Aroney, Routledge handbook of subnational constitutions and constitutionalism (2021) (providing a toolbox of definitions and typologies to develop a theory of multilevel constitutionalism and subnational constitutions).
2. Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz and Zoltán Szente, Populist Challenges to Constitutional Interpretation in Europe and Beyond (2021) (exploring the relationship between populism or populist regimes and constitutional interpretation used in those regimes).
3. Endre Orbán, The EU-Member State Relationship as a Principal-Agent Problem 13(1) Perspectives on Federalism (detecting three types of agency relationships within the European Union, and presenting legal and political solutions of the founding treaties which aim to tackle the agency issues).
4. Cédric Lombaerts, The Role of the European Union in Secessionist Conflicts 13(1) Perspectives on Federalism (analyzing secession in a EU context from a multilevel governance aspect).  
5. Werner Reutter, Subnational Courts of Last Resort in Germany and the USA 13(1) Perspectives on Federalism (exploring the judicial dimension of federal systems from a subnational perspective).
6. Armando Rocha, Private Actors as Participants in International Law, A Critical Analysis of Membership under the Law of the Sea (2021) (examining the status of private actors as subjects of law under the rules of the international law of the sea.).

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. EURAC organizes a Webinar series „Federalism and the Law of Diversity: Islands or Archipelago?“ to be held online. Registration is required.
2. The Queen Mary University of London organizes Queen the annual lecture on Immigration Law to be held Online on 17 November 2021.
3. The University of Aberdeen organizes the third conference „International Law and Technological Progress Conference 2022“ to be held in Abeerden on 23-24 June 2022. The deadline for abstracts is 20 December 2021.
4. The European Society of International Law organizes the 17th Annual Conference „In/Ex-clusiveness of International Law“ to be held in Utrecht on 1-3 September 2022. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 31 January 2022.
5. The University College Dublin announces the 2022 Public Law Conference „The making (and re-making) of Public Law“ to be held in Dublin on 6-8 July 2022.
6. The University of Oxford hosts the Fourteenth Biennial Modern Studies in Property Law Conference to be held in Oxford on 29 April and 31 March 2022.
7. International Atomic Energy Agency organizes the First International Conference on Nuclear Law: The Global Debate to be held in Vienna on 7–11 February 2022. The deadline for submission is 15 November 2021.

Elsewhere Online

1. Nicolò Alessi, Languages in Aosta Valley – Countering old research narratives in political and legal studies, Eureka!
2. Cassandra Somers-Joce, Daniel Hoadley, Editha Nemsic, and Joe Tomlinson, Better Evidence of Judicial Review Decision-Making: Exploring the Potential of Machine Learning, UK Constitutional Law Blog
3. Mark Elliott and Nicholas Kilford, Devolution in the Supreme Court: Legislative supremacy, Parliament’s ‘unqualified’ power, and ‘modifying’ the Scotland Act, Public Law for Everyone
4. Kimberly Wehle, Will Supreme Court allow constitutional oversight to be outmaneuvered by Texas abortion law?, The Hill
5. Wouter Pors, The Unified Patent Court has picked up speed again, Lexology
6. Radosveta Vassileva, Yellow Light for Disciplining Inconvenient Judges?, Verfassungsblog
7. Eirik Holmøyvik, No Surrender to Poland, A Norwegian court suggests surrender to Poland under the EAW should be suspended in general, Verfassungsblog
8. Quinta Jurecic and Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Unlocks a New World of Content Moderation Chaos, lawfareblog
9. Richard Parry, The dilemma of devolution – more powers but potentially worse off, Centre on Constitutional Change
10. Simon Drugda, Presidential Incapacity in Slovakia, slovakconlaw
11. Cristiano d’Orsi and Juan Pablo Serrano Frattali, The right to food and housing for Internally Displaced Persons in Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): geographical distance does not forcibly mean different situations, AfricLaw
12. Gautam Bhatia, The Retrospective Application of Constitutional Statutes: Notes from the High Court of Kenya, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy