What’s New in Public Law

–Angélique Devaux, Cheuvreux Notaires, Paris, France, Diplômée notaire, LL.M. Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law

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 Italian Constitutional Court rejected a trade union’s proposal to force labor law reform.
2. The Canadian Supreme Court ruled that a landowner cannot sue the Alberta energy regulator because its immunity extends to claims of constitutional violations.  
3. The New Jersey Supreme Court established factors such as age, family environment, and peer pressure for juvenile long-term sentencing.
4. A California Appeals Court ruled that a pioneer law that requires prosecutors to decide whether to use lethal force is unconstitutional.
5. Germany’s Supreme Court rejected challenges to the European Union – Canada trade deal signed last year.

In the News

1. The Turkish Parliament started debates about rewriting the constitution.
2. The Thai Parliament approved the King’s request for constitutional changes.
3. The U.S. House of Representatives voted to begin repealing the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare).
4. The North Dakota Senate rejected a bill to update the definition of marriage and recognize same-sex marital relationships.
5. Thailand is considering death penalty sentencing for corruption convictions for Thai officials.
6. The President of Kazakhstan agreed to constitutional reforms that would lead to separation of powers.
7. The German Federal Constitutional Court is about to rule on banning a far-right party.
8. Ireland is about to reconsider its legislation banning abortion.

New Scholarship

1. Seema Mohapatra, Assisted reproduction inequality and marriage equality, Chicago-Kent Law Review (forthcoming) (examining how the advent of marriage equality may impact the rights of same sec couples to have biological children via assisted reproduction and surrogacy after Obergefell v. Hodges)
2. Wang Jingen & Larry A. DiMatteo, Chinese Reception and Transplantation of Western Contract Law, 34 Berkeley Journal of International Law (2016), (studying the foreign and international law influences on Chinese contract law)
3. Ngoc Son Bui, Vietnamese Constitutional Debate in Comparative Perspective, Asian Journal of Comparative Law, Volume 11, Issue 2, December 2016 (examining the debates on sensitive, substantive, and controversial constitutional questions pertaining to fundamental features of the socialist polity in Vietnam)
4. Mirjam Kunkler & Tine Stein, Ernst-Wolfgang Bockenforde–Constitutional and Political Theory, Selected Writings, Oxford University Press (forthcoming) (Contextualizing bockenforde’s work through detailed section introductions and editors’ annotations throughout the articles and giving an insight into Bockenforde’s experiences as a judge at the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany)
5. William Thomas Worster, Contracting Out of Non-Refoulement Protections (studying the three forms of contracting out on non-refoulement: agreements that establish facts, agreements that establish jurisdiction or agreements creating completing norms)
6. Grainne De Burca, Human Rights Experimentalism, American Journal of International Law (forthcoming) (analyzing criticism made to the human rights system and responding to this criticism by surveying a body of recent empirical scholarship on the effectiveness of human rights treaties, and interpreting key aspects of the functioning of those treaties from the perspective of experimentalist governance theory)
7. Joo-Cheong Tham & K. D. Ewing, Labour Clauses in the TPP and TTIP: A comparison Without Difference?, Melbourne Journal of International Law, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2016 (providing a critical analysis of the labor clauses in trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership)
8. Nadia E. Nedzel, Brexit, the Rule of Law, and Hayek’s Spontaneous Order, (comparing the rule of law in the common law and the civil law systems in light in the Brexit context)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The Nova Law School in Lisbon, Portugal calls for papers for its EU conference on “The Federal Experience of the European Union: Past, Present, and Future to be held on May 22-23, 2017 in Lisbon, Portugal.
2. The Anti-Discrimination Law Review is inviting articles for its next volume to be published in 2017.
3. The Central European University, Summer University announced its summer courses related to specific challenges in Africa to be held in Budapest, Hungary from July 3 to July 14, 2017.
4. The King’s College London announced a series of seminars on the meaning of Brexit and its potential impact on different areas of law.
5. Kent Critical Law Society calls for proposals for the Critical Law Conference 2017 which will take place on March 18 -19th, 2017 in Woolf College, University of Kent, Canterbury.
6. The European Society of International Law, interest group on “International Environmental Law” calls for papers for its 13th ESIL Annual Conference on “Global Public Goods, Global Commons and Fundamental Values: The Responses of International Law”, to be held in Naples, on 7–9 September 2017.
7. The Younger Comparativists Committee of the American Society of Comparative Law (YCC) welcomes 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 [deadline January 16th, 2017].

Elsewhere Online

1. Dan Bilefsky, Muslim Girls in Switzerland Must Attend Swim Class With Boys, Court Says, The New York Times
2. Jean-Philippe Derosier, La proportionnelle : non à l’overdose, Le Monde
3. Maciej Kisilowski, Poland : A Country Without A Constitution, The EU Observer
4. Linda Greenhouse, What the Chief Justice Should Have said, The New York Times
5. Anne Smith & Monica McWilliams, Now is The Time To Re-open The Debate About Progressing The Northern Ireland Bill of Rights, UK Constitutional Law Association
6. Nafees Ahmad, Racism in India: Equality Constitutionalism and Lego-Institutionalism response, Comparative Law Prof Blog
7. Russel A. Miller, How To Kill An Idea: An American’s Observations on the NPD Party-Ban Proceedings, Verfasungsblog
8. Gabor Halmai, The Hungarian Constitutional Court and Constitutional Identity, Verfasungsblog
9. Anna Mrozek & Anna Sledzinska-Simon, Constitutional Review as an Indispensable Element of the Rule of Law? Poland as the Divided State between Political and Legal Constitutionalism, Verfasungsblog