CALL
FOR
PAPERS
Submissions are now closed.
PUBLIC LAW: RIGHTS, DUTIES AND POWERS
The theme of the conference will be ‘Public Law: Rights, Duties and Powers’. Like the themes of the previous conferences in the series, the theme we have selected for the 2024 conference aims to facilitate a number of streams of inquiry while setting parameters that will enable meaningful dialogue both within and across those streams. In particular, the theme is intended to invite engagement with a range of topics related to the conceptual building blocks of public law systems, with a focus on rights, duties and powers.
Such topics may include:
RIGHTS
Rights-based theories of public law, and critiques of such theories.
The role of different public institutions such as the legislature, executive, courts or fourth branch of government, in recognizing, interpreting, and implementing rights.
Adjudication of specific rights-issues in comparative perspective.
The nature of different types of public law rights, including human, Indigenous, welfare and fundamental rights, and consideration of different sources of rights, such as constitutions, Indigenous law, statutes, and the common law.
The connection between public law rights and remedies, and the impact of rights-commitments on public decision-making.
DUTIES
Theories of public law based in duties, such as fiduciary duties, and critiques of such theories.
The nature and legal regulation of different types of public law duties, including duties owed by the state to Indigenous peoples, individuals, and to the community as a whole.
The role of courts, the administration and other institutions in interpreting and implementing public law duties, including aspirational duties, duties of progressive realization, and duties to provide public goods.
POWERS
Distribution of powers among subnational jurisdictions, and within single jurisdictions.
The nature and legal regulation of public powers including statutory, prerogative, executive, de facto, and contractual powers.
How public law principles may inform legal regulation of powers exercised by private or international institutions.
How public law ought to respond to new modes of public power such as new technologies and soft law techniques.
