REMINDER: Call for Papers - Irish Society of Comparative Law Conference

The School of Law at NUI Galway, Ireland will host the Irish Society of Comparative Law (ISCL) 5th Annual Conference on Friday 24th and Saturday 25th of May 2013 in Galway. The theme for the ISCL Conference is ‘Comparative Public Law’. Papers placing Irish public law in comparative perspective are especially encouraged, but any topic in comparative or legal systems may be proposed including private law topics. Proposals for thematic panels of papers are also welcomed.

The primary objective of the ISCL is to encourage the comparative study of law and legal systems. Students fully registered for a masters in law, or law-related area (LL.M, MA) are encouraged to submit papers, and the 2nd ISCL Young Researcher Prize will be awarded to the best paper delivered by a student in this category.

Proposals for papers for the 2013 conference should be short (250 words max) and sent to Charles O’Mahony at charles.omahony@nuigalway.ie. The deadline for receipt of proposals is Friday 15 February 2013. Applicants will be notified by Thursday 28th February 2013 if their paper proposal is successful. There will be an opportunity for poster presentations (Posters A1 size) to be displayed in the foyer of the conference venue, Aras Moyola. Poster presenters are expected to attend the conference in the normal way and to be available to discuss their work. You do not have to be a member of the ISCL to propose a paper or be selected to present a poster. Registration forms and additional information will be available early in 2013.

BOOK: Carolin et al on the Constitution of Ireland

I'm very pleased to note the publication of Eoin Carolin (ed), The Constitution of Ireland: Perspectives and Prospects (2012). It

brings together a range of Irish and international commentators to examine some of the most significant current issues in Irish constitutional law.

Based on a selection of the papers originally presented at a conference to mark the 75th anniversary of the enactment of the current Constitution of Ireland, the collection touches on many of the challenges facing Ireland today. These include: the possibilities for political and constitutional reform; the state of Ireland’s democratic structures; national sovereignty in an era of international organisations; the role and conduct of referenda; questions of national identity and values; the meaning of modern Irish republicanism; and the place of religion in Irish society and government. The contributors describe how the Constitution has influenced developments in Ireland since 1937 and consider how it might continue to do so in the future. At a time when Ireland’s political and constitutional structures are under review, The Constitution of Ireland: Perspectives and Prospects provides expert insight into these important questions.

The contents include:

Introduction: The Hon Mrs Justice Susan Denham, Chief Justice - Some thoughts on the Constitution of Ireland at 75;

Part I Constitutional Values:

• Philip Pettit - The Republican Constitution;
• Mark Tushnet - National Identity as a Constitutional Issue: The Case of the Preamble to the Irish Constitution of 1937;
• Ronan McCrea - Rhetoric, Choices and the Constitution;
• Amihai Radzyner - The Irish Influence on the Israeli Constitution Proposal, 1948;
• Eoin Daly - Public Philosophy and Constitutional Interpretation after Natural Law: Republican Horizons;
• Declan O’Keeffe - God, the Natural Law and the 1937 Constitution;
• Maria Cahill - Judicial Conceptions of Sovereignty;

Part II Democracy, Politics and the Constitution:

• Conor O’Mahony - Constitutional Amendment and Judicial Restraint: How Restrained Should an Irish Court Be?;
• Paul Gallagher - The Limits of Constitutionalism;
• David Kenny - The Separation of Powers and Remedies: The Legislative Power and Remedies for Unconstitutional Legislation in Comparative Perspective;
• Jim O’Callaghan - Seanad Éireann – An Opportunity for Real Political Reform;
• Bláthna Ruane - The Doherty Case and Issues Regarding the Provision of Information and Funding for Constitutional Referenda;
• Gaetano Marzulli - Direct Democracy by Judges? The Irish Constitution and the Approach of the Courts to the Referendum as a Model in Comparative Perspective;
• Marie-Luce Paris - Popular Sovereignty and the Use of the Referendum – Comparative Perspectives with Reference to France;

General Principles and Comparative Law

Abstract:
This article explores the source ‘general principles of international law’ from the point of view of comparative law scholarship. The currently accepted definition of general principles and methodology for identifying such principles are critiqued. The criterion of the representativeness of the major families of legal systems, to which courts and tribunals tend to pay lip service rather than applying rigorously, is meant to anchor general principles in state consent, but is not a sound technique either for identifying principles of relevance to international law or for preventing judges from referring only to the legal systems they know best. Furthermore, the emphasis on extracting the essence of rules results in leaving behind most of what is interesting and useful in what judges may have learned by studying municipal legal systems. Comparative scholarship is an obvious, rich, and strangely neglected source of guidance for international judges who wish to draw insights from legal systems outside international law.

Ellis, Jaye, General Principles and Comparative Law (2011). European Journal of International Law, Vol. 22, No. 4, 2011.