SCHOLARSHIP: The Hague Academy of International Law Summer Courses

The Hague Academy of International Law has issued a call for applicants for summer courses of international law and scholarship as well.

A merit-based scholarship program allows approximately 20% of participants to the Summer Courses to receive financial assistance from public and private funding sources. The Secretary-General, in the name of the Curatorium, selects scholarship recipients.

 Period:

• Public International Law: 7 - 25 July 2014

• Private International Law: 28 July - 15 August 2014 

Registration for the 2014 Summer Courses starts December 1st, 2013.

Closing date for applications: March 1st, 0:00 hrs. The Hague time (GMT+1)

In general, scholarships are in the amount of 1150 Euros (from which the registration fee of 400 Euros will be deducted). Travel expenses will be partially reimbursed either by the relevant donor or by the Academy 

Applications for scholarships must relate to only one of the two periods. The Conditions of admission are the same as for full-fee applicants.

Candidates cannot register as paying participants and apply for a scholarship for the same session at the same time. In such cases only the scholarship application will be considered. It is however possible to apply for one session at the full fee (e.g. Public International Law) and to apply for a scholarship to attend the other session (e.g. Private International Law).

Applicants can be awarded a scholarship only once. If you already participated in any of our previous Summer Courses on the basis of a scholarship, you are now exclusively admissible at the full fee.

Details are here and here.

INFORMATION: American Bar Association

We just received the following information:

Welcome to the new American Bar Association (ABA) Bar Year!  A new Bar Year may not quite inspire us to reflect on the changes we want or need to make as the regular new year does, but we hope to take a moment to reflect on how far we have come.  The International Legal Resource Center (ILRC) was established over a decade ago based upon the common commitment of the United (UNDP) and the ABA to advocate for democratic governance and the rule of law on a global scale. The ILRC, which is housed within the ABA Section of International Law (ABA International), identifies experts for UNDP requests relating to technical legal assistance projects, knowledge management, and advisory services worldwide.  Over the past decade, the ILRC’s experience has steadily grown in the number, type, and scope of services it provides. Beginning in 2000, when we received just 15 requests from UNDP for technical legal services, the ILRC has now aided over 250 UNDP democratic governance, rule of law and other projects in over 100 countries. Through the identification and recommendation of experts, provision of legal information, legislative assessments, and other specialized services, the ILRC has built a reputation for responsiveness and adherence to the changing needs of field staff working in developing countries.

We issue this e-bulletin highlighting professional development resources from around the world.  Whether you are a senior or a junior expert, continued education is essential to compliment traditional expertise with the changing global environment.  All e-bulletins include a diverse range of trainings and resources centered on the some of the key areas in the field.  Below we have listed a few exciting projects that the ILRC has contributed to this past year; furthermore, we highlight several experts’ experiences with UNDP this past year. 

Examples of ILRC 2013 projects:

• ABA Justice Defenders:
• Participation in a Strategy Session for Lawyers Litigating Case Under the Prevention of Atrocities Act (India)
• Human Rights Trial Observation in Venezuela
• UNDP/Belarus:  Developing Specialized Courts
• UNDP/Belarus: Gender Review of Court System
• UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED): Regional Workshop for Police Officers, Prosecutors, and Judges in South Asia on Effectively Countering Terrorism
• UNDP/Fiji:  Legal Analysis of Fiji’s Mineral Act
• UNDP/HQ: Development of a Report on the State of Provision of Legal Aid in the World
• UNDP/Ghana: Analysis of Legal Aid Bill
• UNDP/Jamaica: HIV/AIDS Legal Assessment Report for Jamaica
• UNODC/ Kyrgyzstan: Strengthening Criminal Justice Capacities of Central Asian Countries to Counter Terrorism in Compliance with the Rule of Law
• UNDP/Jamaica: HIV/Aids Legislation Research
• UNDP/Turkey: Impact Assessment  of the Judicial Reform Process
• UNDP/Uzbekistan: Research on the Development of a One-Stop-Shop (OSS)
• UNDP/Uzbekistan: Review of Law on Transparency (Upcoming)

We strongly encourage you to take advantage of these resources. In closing, the ILRC is always open to new members. Interested junior and senior experts can email Jacqueline Gichinga at Jacqueline.Gichinga@americanbar.org. To learn more about the ILRC, please visit our website at http://ambar.org/ilrc.

Timothy L. Dickinson
Chairman
ILRC Steering Committee 

COMPETITION: Early Career Poster Competition - European & Comparative Private Law

 

EARLY CAREER POSTER COMPETITION: EUROPEAN & COMPARATIVE PRIVATE LAW

Edinburgh Law School is organising a poster competition on the theme of European and Comparative Private Law in 2013/14. This is open to all EU-based early career researchers, i.e. scholars preparing for a PhD or having been awarded theirdoctorate less than five years ago. 

‘European and comparative private law’ is defined to include all private-law subjects with an element of comparison between jurisdictions (not necessarily from within the EU) or an examination of the private law of the Union. All approaches are equally welcome. The winners (up to three) will be invited to present and discuss their research with judges and members of the Edinburgh Law School at an event organised in the historical Playfair library on 28 March. Costs will be covered by the University. 

For early career researchers, this is a rare opportunity to showcase their research, get to know more established scholars in their field and network with other ‘rising stars’ in the discipline. 

Posters are an increasingly common way to present one’s research, and for those with no previous experience this is a great opportunity to cut their teeth on this exercise. Examples of prior winning entries, as well as links to online tutorials on how to design a poster, are available on the competition website. All entries will be professionally printed by the University and a digital version will remain available online, so the benefits of participating extend beyond the event itself.  

ARTICLE: Sossin on Experience the Future of Legal Education

ARTICLE: Sossin on Experience the Future of Legal Education

Lorne Sossin's 'Experience the Future of Legal Education' in Osgoode Hall Law School, Comparative Research in Law & Political Economy (CLPE) Research Paper Series(2013), is available on SSRN.

Legal education is becoming more experiential, and this is a good thing. This essay examines both claims, and provides an account both of the origins of the experiential turn in legal education, and its implications. This account is written from a Canadian perspective, and more parochially, from an Osgoode Hall Law School perspective. That said, I believe this analysis is relevant to legal education more broadly, and contributes to the ongoing and vital debate over the future of Law School.

ARTICLE: Zumbansen on The Politics of Relevance: Law, Translation and Alternative Knowledges

ARTICLE: Zumbansen on The Politics of Relevance:  Law, Translation and Alternative Knowledges

Peer Zumbansen's "The Politics of Relevance:  Law, Translation and Alternative Knowledges" in  Osgoode Hall Law School, Comparative Research In Law and Political Economy (CLPE) Research Paper Series(2013) is now available on SSRN.

In this article, I want to suggest that there is a significant difference between the current interest of law in sociology (anthropology, geography) and the earlier instance of legal sociology. Whereas historically earlier stances responded, in no small degree, to legal positivism and, eventually, to both technological and societal change, the current social scientific engagement by lawyers appears driven by a differently articulated concern, even anxiety, about the viability of legal analytical, conceptual and semantic tools in a changed, transnational context. With the shift of law’s bearings from the nation-state to globalization’s strange land, law’s need to learn anew and differently can be felt throughout: in textbooks, classrooms, professional ethics and legal practice. In light of the again growing importance of interdisciplinarity, legal pluralism and globalization, law’s new frontier might lie in its reconstitution as transnational sociological jurisprudence. At the center of such an enterprise lies an engagement with the ways in which legal “fields” are conceptualized and put into practice as determinative translations between competing sets of knowledge. The here made contention is that underneath the shifts between different disciplinary approaches to law in the context of legal sociology, comparative law, post-colonial studies or different iterations of “law and…” (culture, history, anthropology, geography etc.) are longstanding questions regarding law as doctrine, theory, practice, culture. These are re-emerging with particular thrust in the transnational regulatory realm, that is to markedly characterized by the absence of institutional infrastructures known from the Western rule of law and welfare state traditions.