CALL FOR PAPERS

The International Society of Public Law
10th Annual Conference
Madrid, Spain

CALL FOR PANELS, PAPERS AND INTEREST GROUPS

The Future of Public Law: Resilience, Sustainability, and Artificial Intelligence

We look forward to welcoming you for our 2024 ICON•S Annual Conference. The conference will feature panels in all areas of public law, and all members of ICON•S are invited to make their submissions in their areas of interest. The plenary program will focus on the main conference’s theme, explained below.

The conference will take place in Madrid, Spain, at IE University, on the 8th, 9th, and 10th of July 2024. In order to make the most out of this exciting event, the conference will be fully in-person.

We are pleased to partner with IE University Law School and continue our tradition of holding a diverse and global event gathering scholars, practitioners, and judges from all over the world to discuss the research of our ICON•S members. 

ICON•S | The International Society of Public Law welcomes you to the Society’s 10th Annual Conference, scheduled to be held on July 8-10, 2024, in Madrid, Spain.

Conference Theme

Submissions

Who Can Participate

Fully Formed Panels

Book Roundtables

Individual Submissions

Interest Groups

Anti-Harassment

Organizing Committee

Conference Theme

All ICON•S members can submit their individual abstracts and propose fully formed panels on any theme that is relevant for public law (including constitutional law, administrative law and international law). 

The plenary program at the 2024 ICON•S Annual Conference will focus on “The Future of Public Law: Resilience, Sustainability, and Artificial Intelligence.” The conference seeks to foster reflection and discussion on the different transformations that public law is going through as a result of the major societal challenges of our time: the quest for sustainability, the AI revolution and, more generally, the need for resilience in a world of exponential change. Public law is central to the global effort to fight climate change and to ensure that human activities are conducted in a manner that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Thus, thinking about the future of public law requires asking questions about its role in achieving a balanced approach to economic growth, environmental preservation, and social equity. The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence also raises profound legal, ethical and societal questions. Many of these questions are connected to the role that public law is called to play in a AI-driven world and, in particular, in addressing issues such as the implications of AI for fundamental rights, algorithmic accountability and transparency in decision-making, the role of AI in law enforcement and the judiciary, and the need for global cooperation in this field. Finally, in a world of constant and exponential change, it is apposite to reflect on the resilience of public law. This calls for a more general discussion on the capacity of constitutions, state structures and regulatory regimes to anticipate, mitigate and adapt to unforeseen crises and challenges, including political crises, socio-economic disruptions, health emergencies, and environmental calamities. 

On their own, each of these issues raises a broad range of questions regarding the future of constitutional law, administrative law and international law. Besides addressing these questions, the goal of the conference is to explore their multifaceted connections. For example, we are interested in the potential of AI and the digital economy in mitigating environmental hazards, its risks for electoral campaigns, the use of massive datasets to achieve and evaluate more data-driven solutions, and promoting renewable energy optimization. The challenge of sustainability, in the context of the global warming threat, is pushing us to identify how we can solve collective action problems that we see in the international sphere and how there may be a connection between democracy and accountability with the policies that different regimes adopt. Public law scholars, practitioners and judges are not (and should not) stay out of these debates. Besides the common judicialization risks and regional perspectives coming from Europe and Latin America, the possibility of approaching these issues from a human rights perspective and the economics and feasibility of achieving acceptable outcomes presents a windy and bumpy road we are yet to understand fully. Without exploring the legal and political frameworks, the AI-driven solutions to these problems and the new associated risks, the impact that these features might have on issues such as data privacy, transparency, international relations, and fourth branch institutions—to name a few—we tend to believe that the contemporary legal and political communities are unprepared for advancing the road in a successful and widely acceptable way. 

The conference theme also invites deliberating on a variety of other topics and approaches that are of ongoing and widespread interest in public law, including but not limited to questions of legal pluralism, global warming, the frameworks of renewable energies, freedom of speech, electoral regulations, privacy, the right to health, democratic theory, the rule of law, and alternative approaches to rights protection, among others.

Submissions

The backbone of the Annual Conference continues to be the concurrent panel sessions. These will take place across all three days of the Conference and will be composed of submissions selected through this Call.

Submissions may, but need not necessarily, relate to the overarching Conference theme. Four types of submission are possible: individual, fully formed panels, book roundtables, and interest groups. You do not need to submit written papers. Submissions will generally include a title and an abstract of up to 250 words. You do not need to submit written papers. We encourage the submission of fully-formed panels and book roundtables.

Please note that each participant can present a paper in a maximum of two panels (whether sole-authored or co-authored) and, subject to scheduling requirements, may participate – as a panel chair, discussant, or interest group convenor – in no more than two additional panels. If you are available, we will also ask you to please volunteer to chair a panel.

Who Can Participate in this Annual Conference?

ICON•S is not restricted to public lawyers or established scholars. We welcome proposals that offer multi-disciplinary perspectives from various areas of law (including civil, criminal, tax, and labor law), as well as from scholars in the humanities and the social sciences (e.g. history, economics, political science, sociology) with an interest in the Conference’s themes. We also welcome submissions from junior scholars (including doctoral students) and practitioners in addition to those from established academics.

The 2024 Annual ICON•S Conference will be a wholly in-person event. Those intending to present, chair, act as a discussant, or some combination thereof should be prepared to travel to Madrid. We will not be hosting online panels nor will speakers be permitted to present remotely.

To submit a proposal, you must have an active ICON•S membership. Other individuals involved in the panel/roundtable/interest group need not be members at the submission stage, but are required to become members in order to attend and speak at the Conference. Several types of membership are available, including discounted membership for emerging scholars and those from non-OECD countries; all of them allow for the submission of panels, roundtables, papers, and interest groups. ICON•S membership includes the conference fee as well as the right to vote in the Council elections and participate in the activities organized for members only.

If you cannot purchase a membership due to financial hardship, please contact us at icons@icon-society.org before 20th January 2024 with a request for a waiver. We will inform you of our decision on your request for a waiver before 31st January 2024.

CURRENT MEMBERS

If you are already a member, you can log in here.

NEW MEMBERS

If you are joining the Society for the first time, please click here.

ASSISTANCE

If you are unable to pay for your membership due to legal restrictions, please contact us at icons@icon-society.org to discuss possible alternative avenues. 

Fully Formed Panels and Book Roundtables

Proposals for fully-formed panels and book roundtables should include between three and five presentations by participants who have agreed in advance to give their presentations. The panel chair can also be a speaker, though it is not necessary. The maximum size of any panel is six, including co-authors, discussants, speakers, and the panel chair. Panels not formed in accordance with the Society’s commitment to gender balance will be rejected. 

Submitters will be asked to provide the title and a 250-word description of the panel. They should also be prepared to identify the type of panel (book roundtable or fully-formed), and the name and email address of all panel participants. A title should also be provided for each presenter’s contribution; individual abstracts are not required. Where applicable, the email addresses provided should be those associated with the speaker’s existing ICON-S account.

As part of our vision of a truly global Conference that invites new members to join together in conversation, we invite submissions for fully-formed panels and book roundtables in any language. Submissions in languages other than English must include at least one panel participant willing and able to translate questions and responses to and from English. Scholars who wish to take advantage of this option, should submit an English-language title and abstract, and identify the language of the panel (e.g., Korean, Spanish, Chinese, German, etc.) in the title, using parenthesis, e.g., “Judicial Review in Emergency Regimes (Italian).”

Individual Submissions

We also welcome individual submissions on any subject related to the Conference theme or to public law in general. After the paper submission is confirmed, it will become part of a panel assembled by ICON•S. Full papers are not required for the Conference. 

This year, in addition to English, we will accept individual submissions in Spanish and French. If there are sufficient individual submissions in those languages, we can assemble panels in Spanish and French. Scholars who wish to take advantage of this option, should submit an English-language title and abstract, and identify the language of the submission (i.e. French or Spanish) in the title, using parenthesis, e.g., “Judicial Review in Emergency Regimes (French).”

Interest Groups

As in previous years, there will also be an opportunity for ICON•S interest groups to meet.

ICON•S Interest (or Working) Groups are composed of scholars hoping to build deeper connections with a view to future collaboration on research and engagement on a particular theme. The key aim of an Interest Group is to enhance the capacity of ICON•S to serve as a forum for supporting cross-national and inter-disciplinary research both at our conferences and beyond. There are a range of existing interest groups in the Society which you may be interested to join, a full list can be found on our website. 

To submit a proposal for an Interest Group, a convener must submit the following information: full name, email address, and institutional affiliation of the conveners (we encourage institutional, regional and gender diversity), the title of the Interest Group, a description of the purpose of the Interest Group no longer than 250 words. You can optionally also provide further information on any plans you have for the group (i.e. joint conferences or publications, specific projects to be pursued by group members, etc.).

Interest groups must be in English.

How and When to Submit?

The submission window will close at 11:59pm UCT on February 11, 2024. No submissions will be allowed after that date. Notification for acceptance of individual submissions will be provided by February 15, 2024. Please note that in order to access the submission page, you must be logged into your ICON•S account and have an active ICON•S membership.

Anti-Harassment Policy

We draw your attention to the ICON•S anti-harassment policy, which including avenues for assistance and redress. This policy applies to all ICON•S programs, including both the in-person and virtual components of this Annual Conference.

Organizing Committee

Richard Albert, Sonsoles Arias, Gráinne De Búrca, Gustavo Buss, Marta Cartabia, Mariana Canales, Lorenzo Casini, Sabino Cassese, Rosalind Dixon, François Delerue, Marie-José Garot, Claudia Golden, Michaela Hailbronner, Ran Hirschl,  Yuliya Kaspiarovich, Antonios Kouroutakis, Juan Sebastián López, Ruth Rubio Marín, Stefano Osella, Fernando Pastor, Irene Parra Prieto, Anna Pirri Valentini, Argelia Queralt, Marianne Poehls Risco, Evan Rosevear, Daniel Sarmiento, Amal Sethi, Sergio Verdugo, Joseph Weiler.

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