What’s New in Public Law

–Nausica Palazzo, Ph.D. researcher in Comparative Constitutional Law (University of Trento)

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 Constitutional Court of South Africa ruled that new homeowners are not liable for historical debt incurred by previous owners.
2. The Constitutional Court of Indonesia declined to review the Citizenship Law’s Article 41, requiring children of mixed marriages to register to attain Indonesian citizenship.
3. The US Supreme Court stays a lower court order redrawing Texas congressional districts deemed discriminatory.
4. The Supreme Court of Kenya nullified the results of presidential elections.
5. The Supreme Court of Kyrgyzstan confirmed that recently convicted opposition leader Tekebaev cannot run for presidential elections.

In the News

1. The Chilean President signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage and adoption for same-sex couples and sent it to Congress for debate.
2. Poland snubs EU Commission’s concerns over the politicization of the judiciary.
3. South Africa’s High Court is set to is hear a case on the legalization of polygamous Muslim marriages.
4. India’s government rejected calls to outlaw marital rape, as the Delhi High Court conducts hearings on the issue.
5. The US President’s recent Memorandum barring enlistment of transgender individuals in the military was challenged in court.
6. The Togolese opposition has called for a revision of the 1992 Constitution and to end the 50-year ruling dynasty.
7. A Brazilian court enjoined a decree by President Temer allowing mining in an Amazon reserve.
8. A Pakistani anti-terrorism court declared ex-military leader Musharraf a fugitive from the law in the Benazir Bhutto murder case.

New Scholarship

1. Jane C. Ginsburg, The Court of Justice of the European Union Creates an EU Law of Liability for Facilitation of Copyright Infringement: Observations on Brein v. Filmspeler [C-527/15] (2017) and Brein v. Ziggo [C-610/15] (2017) (forthcoming 2017) (describing the European harmonization of the law on derivative liability for violation of the right of communication to the public)
2. Anthony F. Lang and Antje Wiener (eds.), Handbook on Global Constitutionalism (2017) (introducing to the history, philosophy, and evidence of global constitutionalism)
3. Pamela S. Karlan, Undue Burdens and Potential Opportunities in Voting Rights and Abortion Law, Indiana Law Journal (forthcoming 2017) (analyzing the similar doctrinal evolution of voting rights and abortion rights, and building on the undue burden standard to discuss the impact of poverty on liberty and equality)
4. Justine Guichard, Regime Transition and the Judicial Politics of Enmity: Democratic Inclusion and Exclusion in South Korean Constitutional Justice (2016) (examining the role the Constitutional Court of Korea has performed in the context of the transition from an authoritarian to a democratic regime)
5. Uladzislau Belavusau, Hate Speech, in Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law (forthcoming 2017) (analyzing in comparative perspective the regulation of hate speech)
6. Theodore Eisenberg and Giovanni B. Ramello (eds.), Comparative Law and Economics (2016) (offering a glimpse of the new perspectives that enrich the law and economics methodology, among which is the comparative approach)

Special Announcement: Conference on “A Tale of Two Constitutions”

On 18 September, academics from both sides of the Atlantic will convene at the Palace of Versailles for “A Tale of Two Constitutions.” The conference will draw academics from law and political philosophy, as well as a former Le Monde foreign correspondent with expertise in the constitutional and revolutionary history of France and American, and their impact and influence upon one another.  Conference participants will meet in Versailles’ new auditorium and will be welcomed by the President of Versailles and the US Embassy.

The conference will include three panels, discussing the French influence on American constitutional thought, the American influences on the French revolution and first constitutions, and the divergent histories of religious freedom and its impact on comparative constitutional law.  Plenary sessions will be on the American Founding in Paris and the French civil law tradition in American constitutional thought. A special presentation by the Quill Project at Pembroke College, Oxford will introduce the concept of adding French Revolutionary and constitutional negotiations to its corpus of American constitutional negotiations, making it possible to critically and scientifically compare and analyze the seminal work of the various bodies involved in those discussions, the entire body of work of which forms the basis for modern jurisprudence in much of the world.

For a full conference program, visit Versailles’ website here. To register for the conference, click here. For questions, please contact Lorianne Updike Toler at lautoler@libertascc.com.

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The University of Toronto holds a conference on “The Canadian Constitution in Global Context: An Italian-Canadian Dialogue,” on Sept. 16-17, 2017, examining in comparative perspective the relevant features of Canadian Constitutional Law.
2. Scholars with ten years or fewer years of teaching experience are invited to participate in the first-ever Younger Scholars Forum in Comparative Law, to be held in Fukuoka, Japan on Wednesday, July 25, 2018, from 9:00am to 12:00pm as part of the larger quadrennial Congress of Comparative Law organized by the International Academy of Comparative Law (IACL).
3. Jindal Global Law School, Melbourne Law School, NUS Faculty of Law, and Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford invite submissions from early career researchers to a workshop on on “Comparative Perspectives on Administrative Law in India.” The workshop will be held in Delhi, India, on April 7-8, 2017. The deadline for submissions is September 5, 2017.
4. The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Administrative Law Section invites submissions for the 2018 AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego, to be held on January 3-6, 2018. Only junior scholars are eligible to participate. Abstracts should be sent to lvirelli@law.stetson.edu by November 10, 2017.
5. Revista Teoria Jurídica Contemporânea invites submission for its Special Section of vol. 2, no. 2 (July-December, 2017) on “Contemporary Comparative Law: Studies in Theory and Practice.” It accepts submissions in French, Portuguese, Spanish, and English. All submissions should be sent through the journal’s system.
6. The Penn State University Center for the Study of Higher Education is hiring a scholar of higher education law and legal issues. The search committee will begin reviewing applications on September 15, 2017, and continue until the position has been filled. Applications shall be submitted electronically.
7. The ASCL Younger Comparativists Committee invites comparative law professors to share their class syllabi to expand its database. To include your syllabus in the database, please email to lehrlehnardtr@umkc.edu and include “YCC Teaching Database” in the message’s subject heading, by September 20, 2017.
8. The Swiss Institute of Comparative Law hosts a conference on “24 Years of Texaco/Chevron and Ecuador: What Happened in Lago Agrio and What Legal Action Has Accomplished,” to be held on September 14, 2017, in Lausanne.

Elsewhere Online

1. Elisa Arcioni and Helen Irving, Dual citizenship and eligibility to serve as a member of Parliament – the evolving story in Australia, EUI Citizenship blog
2. Asanga Welikala, More than meets the eye? The Sri Lankan Supreme Court’s decision on the proscription of the Federal Party, ConstitutionNet
3. Dan Svantesson, Supreme Court of Canada challenges the idea of state sovereignty, OUPblog
4. Carlos Ayala Corao, Venezuela: Lessons of a Crisis Written on the Wall, Verfassungsblog
5. Adeel Hussain, Privacy and the Indian Supreme Court, Verfassungsblog
6. Lillian Cunningham, Episode 5 of the Constitutional podcast: ‘Gender’, The Washington Post
7. Jack M. Balkin, Scenes from a Disjunctive Presidency, Balkinization
8. Monica Cappelletti, Puzzling over Big Data and Data Protection Rights in a European Perspective, Comparative Law Prof Blog
9. Paul Webb, Susan E Scarrow and Thomas Poguntke, New parties, new movements: but how much say do party members get?, EUROPP
10. Duncan Okubasu, (Ethno-political) Strategic Components of the Supreme Court of Kenya’s Presidential Election Decision: Settling for the lesser evil?,
11. Sarah Murray, Knight’s Watch: Ad Hominem Parole Legislation Hits the High Court, AUSPUBLAW
12. Max Regus, Islam and Human Rights: A Critical Intersection, OxHRH Blog
13. Kamilia Khairul, Children’s Rights, Illegitimacy and the Rule of Law in Malaysia, OxHRH