What’s New in Public 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 Constitutional Court of Angola rejected appeal to annul election results

2. The Czech Constitutional Court released a foreign national wrongfully detained because he was granted asylum in Austria.

3. Israel’s Constitutional Court ruled unconstitutional military exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews.

4. The United States Supreme Court allowed the administration’s travel ban to go into effect.

In the News

1. The French Government declares its intention to legalize assisted reproduction for all women.

2. Australia’s same-sex marriage vote has started.

3. The Catalan government plans to hold a referendum on independence despite the Spanish Supreme Court declaring the vote illegal.

4. The Russian Constitutional Court will hear an appeal on privacy of personal correspondence.

5. Tunisian women are now allowed to marry non-Muslim men.

6. The President of Zimbabwe signed the constitution amendment bill changing the selection of the Chief Justice.

New Scholarship

1. Charles R. Calleros., U.S. Unconscionability and Article 1171 of the New French Civil Code: Achieving Balance in Statutory Regulation and Judicial Intervention, 45 Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 259 (2017) (comparing the 2016 French obligation law reform with the American unconscionability doctrine, and examining the benefits of combining judicial powers of intervention with statutory and administrative regulation)

2. Charles M. Fombad, Constitutional Adjudication in Africa, Oxford University Press 2017 (identifying and examining the different models of constitutional review in Africa and providing a comparative study of the contemporary constitution adjudication practice)

3. Erdem Buyuksagis, The Role of Comparative Law: New International Model Rules vs. Time-Tested Local Practices, North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation, Vol. 42, No.3, 2017 (analyzing globalization in light of the role of comparative law).

4. Jack I. Garvey, The Future Legal Management of Mass Migration, International Lawyer (forthcoming) (providing a lens for management of mass migration consistent with established international refugee law, human rights law, humanitarian law, and national control of immigration)

Calls for Papers and Announcements

1. The African Network of Constitutional Lawyers (ANCL), in collaboration with the Department of Law at the University of Botswana and partners, call for papers for its next ANCL Biennial Conference to be held in Gaborone, Botswana, on October 11-14, 2018, on the theme “Courts, Power and Constitutional Law in Africa”

2. The Human Rights Centre at the University of Padova, Italy, invites submissions for its International Conference on the “Role of Human Rights Research: Current Challenges and Future Opportunities,” to be held November 27th–28th, 2017 at the University of Padova.

3. The Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness Melbourne Law School seeks two experiences researchers.

4. ICourts, The Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence For International Courts, welcomes visiting scholars.

5. The Institute for Comparative Federalism of Eurac Research, Bolzano/Bozen, the Faculty of Law and the School of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Innsbruck calls for application for its Winter School on Federalism and Governance 2018 to be held from February 5th to 16th at the Faculty of Law and School of Political Science and Sociology, Leopold-Franzens–Universität Innsbruck, Austria and at the Institute for Comparative Federalism, Eurac Research, Bolzano/Bozen, Italy.

Elsewhere Online

1. Raphael Minder, Catalonia Independence Bid Pushes Spain Toward Crisis, The New York Times

2. Julia Kyrychenko, Ukraines’s more accessible and independent Constitutional Court, Constitution.net

3. Samantha Chasworth, Giving a voice to the 32,000: Why immigrant Detainees Must Have First Amendment Rights, Jurist

4. Shawn Marie Boyne, Policing and Terrorism: Guest Post by Dr. Melissa Hamilton, Comparative Law Prof Blog

5. Lorna Woods, Privacy at work: The Strasbourg Grand Chamber clarifies the law, EU law analyzing