–Simon Drugda, Nagoya University Graduate School of Law (Japan)
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
- The French Constitutional Council ruled against a fiscal measure dubbed the “Google tax”, which was aimed at making it harder for multinational companies to minimize their tax payments in France.
- Poland’s President Andrzej Duda declined to sign the government’s freedom of assembly bill into law and sent it to the Constitutional Tribunal for a review. The bill was to provide a legal basis for prioritizing rallies deemed by the authorities to have national importance over other demonstrations and gatherings.
- The Constitutional Court of Bolivia ruled that President Evo Morales Cannot hold another reelection referendum.
- The Supreme Court of Japan ruled in favor of the central government in the dispute with the Okinawa prefecture over a controversial US base relocation.
- The Constitutional Court of South Korea sped up its proceedings toward a ruling on the impeachment motion against President Park Geun-hye.
In the News
- The Parliamentary Constitutional Committee in Turkey approved draft constitutional amendments that introduce a new executive presidential system. The proposal will now go to a vote in parliament’s general assembly, before a referendum expected by spring.
- The Korean National Assembly formed an ad hoc committee for constitutional revision, for the first time since 1987, to revise the country’s presidency.
- The Kenyan Senate struck down a constitutional bill meant to guarantee gender equality in all government positions.
- The White House announced sanctions against Russia for election hacking.
- The Congress in Colombia approved an amnesty law to protect thousands of FARC rebels, and military from prosecution for minor crimes committed during the country’s 52-year war.
New Scholarship
- Oonagh B. Breen, Alison Dunn, and Mark Sidel, Regulatory Waves: Comparative Perspectives on State Regulation and Self-Regulation Policies in the Nonprofit (2016) (exploring the interplay between state control and nonprofit self-regulation in sixteen jurisdictions from historical, cultural, political, and environmental perspectives)
- Marko Milanovic, Courting Failure: When are International Criminal Courts Likely to Be Believed by Local Audiences?, in The Oxford Handbook of International Criminal Law, Kevin Jon Heller, Frederic Megret, and Sarah Nouwen (eds.) (forthcoming 2017) (drawing a predictive theory of international criminal courts failure based on research in social psychology and public opinion polls)
- Eva Brems, The ‘Logics’ of Procedural-Type Review by the European Court of Human Rights, in Procedural Review in European Fundamental Rights Cases, Janneke Gerards and Eva Brems (eds.) (forthcoming 2017) (exploring the ECtHR’s turning to quality assessment of domestic court procedures and legal processes from a normative perspective)
- Chintan Chandrachud, Measuring Constitutional Case Salience in the Indian Supreme Court (2016) 6 Journal of Indian Law and Society (developing an alternative, exogenous measure of case salience before the Indian Supreme Court based on the case citations in the newspapers)
- Adilson Jose Moreira, Discourses of Citizenship in American and Brazilian Affirmative Action Court Decisions (2016) 64 American Journal of Comparative Law (comparing the similarities and differences between the discourses of race neutrality and race consciousness in the United States and Brazil)
- Keren Weinshall Margel, Udi Sommer, and Ya’acov Ritov, Ideological Influences on Governance and Regulation: The Comparative Case of Supreme Courts (2016). Regulation & Governance (positing a dynamic response model to investigate attitudinal behavior in national courts, with a data on political and religious rights rulings in the Supreme Courts of the U.S, Canada, India, the Philippines and Israel)
Calls for Papers and Announcements
- The Younger Comparativists Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law (YCC) invites submissions for the Phanor J. Eder LL.B./J.D. Prize in Comparative Law, in connection with its Sixth Annual Conference, to be held on April 28-29, 2017, at Koç University Law School in Istanbul, Turkey. The deadline for submission is January 16, 2017.
- The Political Constitutional Theory (PolCon) network invites submissions for its symposium on “The People: Democracy, Populism, and the Constituent Popular Sovereign,” to be held in Helsinki, on June 21-23, 2017. The symposium focuses on the relationship between democracy and “a people.”
- Law & Social Inquiry invites direct submissions from graduate and law students and nominations of student work from faculty to its annual competition for the best journal-length paper in the field of law and social science. Entries will be accepted starting January 1, 2017 and must be received by March 1, 2017.
- The German Law Journal invites submissions to a Special Issue on the topic of “Constitutional Identity in the Age of Global Immigration.” The issue discusses national, regional, and global challenges presented by international migration, as well as legal and ethical dilemmas that have arisen because of massive population movements. Abstracts are due by February 15, 2017.
- LUISS Università Guido Carli hosts the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL-AIDC) roundtable for junior scholars on “Constitutional Adjudication: Traditions and Horizons,” to be held on May 5-6, 2017. The event’s general theme is “Between Pluralism and Unity.” Interested scholars are invited to submit a CV and an abstract no longer than 500 words by January 16, 2017 to pfaraguna@luiss.it.
Elsewhere Online
- Saskia Stucki, Toward Hominid and Other Humanoid Rights: Are We Witnessing a Legal Revolution?, Verfassungsblog
- Erdi Öztürk, İştar Gözaydın, Turkey’s draft constitutional amendments: harking back to 1876?, Verfassugnsblog
- Leonid Sirota, Abusus Non Tollit Usum, Double Aspect
- Anna Bruce, Graham Mills, and Iain MacGill, What role for the states on climate and energy policy? NSW enters the fray, The Conversation
- Amanda Sapienza, Chief Justice French on Non-Statutory Executive Power: A Timely Reflection, AUSPUBLAW
- Noah Feldman, Scalia’s Legacy on the Court Looks Surprisingly Secure, Bloomberg View
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