Author: Editor

Koen De Feyter Memorial Lecture Series

On 20 September 2024, Professor Koen De Feyter passed away. Unexpectedly. Professor De Feyter was an inspirational scholar. He published widely on human rights and development cooperation, the rights of indigenous peoples, human rights and business, and the right to development. His driving force was his quest for justice, in particular for indigenous peoples, local communities and the Palestinian people. Professor De Feyter brought people together and built global communities that became intellectual homes for so many scholars.

Professor De Feyter was a driving force in the establishment of the LDRN. He was also the LDRN’s chair until mid-September 2024. His contribution to the establishment of a global approach to law and development and an infused global justice agenda into law and development was significant. His work will continue to inspire the Network’s research and practice.

In this lecture series, four colleagues from different parts of the world, who have closely collaborated with professor De Feyter, will commemorate his life and legacy.

Date

Room

Name

Affiliation

Lecture title

Wed 26/2

SC 002

Daniel Matthew

National Law University-Delhi

Balancing Scales: Human Rights Considerations in Investment Arbitration

Thu 13/3

SC 103

Carol Ngang

National University of Lesotho

State’s Entitlement to Assert the Right to Development: An Enquiry into the Unsettled Controversy

Tue 18/3

SC 103

Dana Farraj

Birzeit University/Burgundy University

The Right of People to Self-Determination between a Legal Interpretation and an Emancipatory Perspective

Wed 26/3

SC 002

Liliana Lizarazo Rodriguez

Brussels School of Governance

Koen De Feyter and the Evolution of Law and Development in the 21st Century 

The lecture series is a joint initiative of the Law and Development Research Group and the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp.

Practical information

Each lecture starts at 5 p.m. and will end latest at 7 p.m.

Venue: University of Antwerp Stadscampus, Building s.C. Grote Kauwenberg 2, 2000 Antwerpen. 

The lectures will also be available through live-stream via this link: https://lnkd.in/eiVXtNaj.

Registration is not necessary.

If you have any questions, please contact the Law and Development Research Group (lawanddevelopment@uantwerpen.be).

Call for Papers: FD UFMG – LDRN 7th General Conference

About the Conference

The increasing integration of global legal policies and institutions with local institutions has generated a growing interest among governments, legal professionals, policymakers and academics in analysing the role of law and possible reforms to address development challenges and promote inclusive growth. Over the past 75 years, research into Law and Development has shown that legal systems are fundamental in addressing the challenges of economic development, growth and distributive equality, not only in countries of the Global South, but throughout the world. This interdisciplinary field of study draws on several disciplines, including economics, sociology, political science, cultural studies and, of course, law itself.

The Law and Development Research Network (LDRN) and the UFMG Faculty of Law (FDUFMG) are honoured to announce the 7th General Conference, taking place at the Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, between 15 – 18 July 2025.

The Conference will provide a unique opportunity for academics from Latin America to present their ideas on the region’s development challenges with scholars from other parts of the Global South and North. In addition, the Conference will promote the formation of academic and research partnerships between the participating academics and institutions.

A workshop for emerging scholars, aligned with the conference theme, is being planned. Further details will be communicated in due time.

Conference Theme: Extractivism, Development and Human Rights

The Conference will discuss a wide variety of themes and subjects relevant to neo-extractive development, human rights, law and development, including the following areas:

        • Extractivism, land, natural resources and development;
        • Indigenism/Indigenous cosmovision and development;
        • Access to justice, strategic litigation and development;
        • Development, nature and human rights;
        • International law, institutional governance and development;
        • Financial institutions, corporate capture and corporate responsibility in the context of law and development;
        • Democracy, digitalisation and law and development;
        • Disability rights and development;
        • Suffering, injustice and the dialectic of law and development;
        • Post development, maldevelopment, sustainable development;
        • Law and human rights in settler states.

The Conference welcomes applications from a wide range of researchers and encourages submissions concerned with children’s rights, gender, health, race, poverty, inequality and discrimination as relevant to the theme.

Call for papers

FDUFMG and LDRN reserve the right to select the papers for final presentation at the conference. The papers will be grouped into panels (approximately 20 simultaneous sessions), four papers per panel, in addition to the opening and closing sessions.

In addition to the general call for individual papers, we also encourage individuals to organise their own panels, including fully formed panel proposals, by coordinating with colleagues, preferably from LDRN partner institutions, along the theme of the conference. This will allow for more cohesive panels and will foster greater collaboration among participants, which is one of the key aims of the LDRN Conference. The organisers reserve the right to make changes to the panel allocation.

We also encourage the proposals of ‘Practitioner Conversations’ and ‘Book Launch Conversations’. The organizing committee will determine date and time of these presentations as soon as the demand is defined.

The possibility of online participation may be explored in exceptional cases.

Selection Criteria

The selection process will be conducted by a group of academics specialised in the interdisciplinary field of law and development. The assessment criteria will be based on: abstract quality; relevance to law and development and the theme of the conference; geographic diversity; and balance between senior and junior researchers. Participants must be university professors, PhD holders or doctoral candidates. Exceptionally, we may consider submissions from researchers at LDRN partner institutions who hold a masters’ or an undergraduate degree. Preference will be given to in-person presentations; however, online presentations will be considered in exceptional circumstances.

Guidelines for Submission

Abstracts may be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. The maximum word limit is 500 words for individual submissions and 750 words for co-authored submissions. Each abstract must be linked to a specific track and include four keywords. The submission deadline is 24 January 2025. Abstracts received after the submission deadline may be rejected. The submission must include a disclaimer stating that the article is original and has not been previously published or is currently under consideration elsewhere. All submissions will undergo a plagiarism check.

Abstracts should be followed by an outline of the article (more details concerning the date and format will follow once all abstracts have been reviewed). 

The abstract should be formatted in font size 12 with 1.5 line spacing for the main text and automatic spacing between paragraphs. Footnotes should be in font size 10 with single line spacing. Both the main text and footnotes must adhere to the 2012 edition of the Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA). Co-authorship is allowed, and the abstract must be submitted in PDF format.

Abstracts may be submitted online using this form: https://forms.gle/TTvAHqu79nR2Yt2Y8

Accepted abstracts will be notified by email by 14 February 2025. Please provide a valid e-mail address.

Venue, Accommodation & Visa

The Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) will be the main venue for the Conference. The Faculty is in the city centre and is close to the bus connection to Belo Horizonte International Airport (CNF). We regret our inability to provide accommodation and cover the travel costs of all participants.

Nearby hotels and accommodation: Belo Horizonte Plaza Hotel, Dayrell Hotel & Centro de Convenções, and Ibis Belo Horizonte Liberdade are some of the hotels in the vicinity of the Faculty that the participants can book themselves for their stay in Belo Horizonte.

The conference organizers are prepared to provide a letter of support to assist with the visa application process if needed.

Registration Fee

The registration fee for the Conference is US$100 for international participants and R$500 for local participants. All local PhD candidates, masters’ and undergraduate students may participate in the Conference at R$250. All international PhD candidates, masters’ and undergraduate students may participate in the conference at US$50. In exceptional circumstances, a fee waiver is possible, subject to the discretion of the organising committee. A link for online payment will be provided.

Conference Organising Committee

Fabiano Teodoro Lara (UFMG); Edilson Vitorelli (UFMG);  Ricardo Ruiz (UFMG); Diogo Coutinho (University of São Paulo); C. Ignacio de Casas (Universidad Austral); Joanna Botha (Nelson Mandela University); Sam Adelman (University of Warwick); Gamze Erdem Türkelli (University of Antwerp).

Conference e-mail: 7LDRN.BR@GMAIL.COM

*** All abstracts must be submitted via this form: https://forms.gle/TTvAHqu79nR2Yt2Y8

IN MEMORIAM: PROF KOEN DE FEYTER – ON BEHALF OF THE LAW AND DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH NETWORK

It is with deep sadness that the Law and Development Research Network (the LDRN) mark the passing of Koen De Feyter on 20 September. Koen was a professor of international law and dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Antwerp, where he completed his doctorate. He was previously attached to the Human Rights Centre of the University of Maastricht, the Institute of Development Policy of the University of Antwerp and served as the Academic Coordinator of the European Master in Human Rights and Democratisation (Venice, Italy). He is a former Chair of Amnesty International Belgium (1998-1999).

Koen was an expert in human rights and North-South relations, socio-legal research in non-Western countries such as Bolivia, China, DRC, India, Palestine, and law and development generally. He worked with the UN Human Rights Council on the recognition of a right to development. He was a driving force in the establishment of the LDRN. Koen was also the LDRN’s informal chair until mid-September 2024. His contribution to the establishment of a global approach to law and development and an infused global justice agenda into law and development was significant. His work will continue to inspire the Network’s research and practice.

Koen’s output was substantial. His publications include World Development Law (2001), Human Rights and Social Justice in the Age of the Market (2005), Out of the Ashes: Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights (2006, co-ed.), Economic Globalisation and Human Rights (2007, co-ed.), The Right to Development : a treaty and its discontents (2016), and the Encyclopaedia of Law and Development (2021, co-ed.) Koen was instrumental in ensuring the involvement of scholars from across the globe is the compilation of the Encyclopaedia, a work which involved many of the Network’s partners as co-editors and co-authors. This collaborative approach epitomises Koen – as a person and as a scholar. He also published numerous articles in journals such as the Loyola University of New Orleans Human Rights Review, the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights and the Africa Legal Aid Quarterly.

The Network (the LDRN) extends its deepest condolences to Koen’s family. He was a remarkable individual and scholar who inspired and guided many across the globe. Koen’s influence will endure through his body of work and the lasting impact he made on the students, researchers, and the colleagues he engaged with throughout his career. We will miss you, Koen, and will ensure that your legacy is reflected in the Network’s work in the future.

To ensure that everyone who knew Koen has the opportunity to attend the funeral taking place this Friday, 27 September, at 15:00 CET, a livestream will be provided, which you can access via this link: https://storycatchers.live/uitvaart-koen-de-feyter/. This link may be shared with others within your network who knew Koen.

Please note that the University of Antwerp has made available a Condolences Registry that his colleagues, students and friends from all over the world could sign to be delivered to Koen’s family. 

Conference: Human Rights Beyond Territory and State

Conference: Human Rights Beyond Territory and State (27 – 29 May 2024), Brussels (BE)

This interdisciplinary conference examines cutting-edge issues regarding the human rights responsibilities of states and other actors (such as corporations, financial institutions, international organisations and other non-state actors) – beyond or independent of states’ territorial boundaries – in the areas of climate change, migration, and natural resource extraction. This conference is organised by a network of expert researchers who have been exploring for many years questions such as “What kind of relationship creates a human rights duty?” Who can have a human rights duty?” and “How are human rights responsibilities divided between actors?”.

This is the closing conference of the scientific research network “Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations in Practice” (https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/etos-in-practice/), aiming on the one hand to share and critically examine the latest answers to these questions, and on the other, to identify the current most relevant conceptual and legal needs on the ground and in practice, in holding states (and others) accountable across borders.    

What to Expect:

Our goal is to bring together a diverse group of participants from academia, civil society and advocacy groups to map the current state-of-the-art but primarily to identify key issues on which we need to work to pave the way forward for human rights accountability beyond territorial boundaries and state-centrism. We envisage a mixed conference, with opening and closing sessions that target a broader and non-specialist audience (also web-streamed), and a closed nuclear conference in between with experts from different backgrounds.

More information is available on the official web-page of the Conference: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/research-groups/law-and-development/news-and-events/hr-beyond-territory-and-state/ 

Register for the conference:

We kindly invite individuals from various backgrounds and types of expertise — academia, legal practice, public policy, civil society, advocacy— to join us. Whether you specialise in these areas or have other direct experiences, your perspective is invaluable.

Join us in taking stock and identifying the new steps for Human Rights beyond borders of territory and state.

Register at: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=-wgueVQtjkqvciAlSBNu9huF6HMBCH5JofOqPn86yXtUQzUyM09PQ0M2WUYyQjhBNzg2NElTMVJLVS4u

In-person registration is due by the 15th of May, 2024.

In case of questions: giulia.contes@uantwerpen.be

Upcoming Deadlines for Opportunities, Calls for Papers & Events (September 2023)

Calls for Abstracts / Papers / Expressions of Interest

Call for Papers: Law & Related Disciplines, LawFoyer International Journal of Doctrinal Legal Research (LIJDLR) (deadline to submit: 5 November 2023)

Call for Book Chapter Proposals: Belonging Denied: Citizenship Revocation and Statelessness as Human Rights Deprivation, edited by Salvador Santino F. Regilme, Jr. – Associate Professor of International Relations, Leiden University (deadline to submit abstracts: 15 December 2023)

Call for Papers: Special Issue: The evolving role of international judicial advisory opinions, Guest Editors: Dr. Kathryn Allinson and Beril Sogut, International Community Law Review (deadline to submit abstracts: December 2023)

Call for Blogs, Society for Constitutional Law and Human Rights (on a rolling basis until December 2023)

Vacancies / Fellowships / Scholarships

CERES PhD Programme for 2023-24, Research School for International Development (CERES)

Open Call for Applications: Mobility Program in Human Rights (Sept 2022 – Aug 2024), The Institute for Human Rights at Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU), Finland (Deadline: 7 November 2023)

Call for Applications: post-graduate certificate programme on “Sustainable Development and Global Justice” (SUSTJUSTICE) 12 Feb – 10 May 2024, the Law and Development Research Group at the Faculty of Law at the University of Antwerp (Deadline to apply: 23 December 2023)

Events

Workshop on Protest Movements and International Law, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (2-3 November 2023)

Conference: Law and Development Post the Pandemic, The Law and Development Institute and the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, National University of Singapore (NUS) (8-9 December 2023)

SAVE THE DATE! LDRN 7th General Conference at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil – July 2025

LDRN 7th General Conference at the Faculty of Law of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil – July 2025

We are thrilled to announce that the next LDRn General Conference will be hosted by LDRN partner the Faculty of Law at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, in July 2025.

We are grateful to our hosts and look forward to the first LDRN conference in South America.

Further details will follow on our website and on the LDRN Twitter account. In the meantime, we cordially invite you to save the date!

Upcoming Deadlines for Opportunities, Calls for Papers & Events (July 2023)

Calls for Abstracts / Papers / Expressions of Interest

Call for Papers: Global Constitutionalism and Supranational Adjudicative Bodies: Global South Experiences vis-à-vis Hegemony, The Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo (Deadline to submit abstracts: 21 August 2023)

Call for Papers: Current Issues in Armed Conflicts Conference, The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and the Conflict and Crisis Hub at the University of Essex (Deadline to submit abstracts: 25 August 2023)

Call for Contributions: Victims & Transnational Justice – Participation, Mobilisation, Resistance, Ghent University (Deadline to submit abstracts: 15 September 2023)

The 4th Young Legal Researchers Conference 2023: The role of law in shaping resilient and sustainable societies, Faculty of Law at the University of Hasselt (Deadline to submit abstracts: 24 September 2023)

Vacancies / Fellowships / Scholarships

Post-Doctoral Researcher, Department of Sociology and Criminology – School of Society, Politics and Ethics at University College Cork (10 August 2023)

Post-Doctoral Researcher, School of Law, University College Cork (12 September 2023)

Events

Workshop on Protest Movements and International Law, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (2-3 November 2023)

LDRN Members Publications

Recent LDRn Member Publications

Kirandeep Kaur, Ben Grama, Nairita Roy Chaudhuri, Maria Jose Recalde-Vela, Ethics and Epistemic Injustice in the Global South: A Response to Hopman’s Human Rights Exceptionalism as Justification for Covert Research, Journal of Human Rights Practice, 03 May 2023. 

 

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This regular feature on the website of the Law & Development Research Network (LDRn) primarily aims to highlight the recent publications of our members.
 
Other recent publications of interest to our readers, e.g. special journal issues or symposia on law & development, may also be included.
 
If you are an LDRn member and would like to have your recent publication included in the next round-up, please send references and links to the editor and/or tag LDRn on Twitter when you announce it there!

Upcoming Deadlines for Opportunities, Calls for Papers & Events (June 2023)

Calls for Abstracts / Papers / Expressions of Interest

Call for Papers: Critical Legal Conference 2023, Durham Law School (Deadline for submitting abstracts: 30 June 2023)

Call for Abstracts: Symposium on ‘Russia, Imperialism, and International Law’, The Walther Schücking Institute for International Law at the University of Kiel (Deadline to submit abstracts: 3 July 2023)

Call for Papers on International Criminal Jurisdiction, Journal of International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (3-4) 2023 (Deadline for submissions: 15 July 2023)

Call for Papers: Global Constitutionalism and Supranational Adjudicative Bodies: Global South Experiences vis-à-vis Hegemony, The Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo (Deadline to submit abstracts: 21 August 2023)

Vacancies / Fellowships / Scholarships

Project Officer, the International Nuremberg Principles Academy (20 June 2023)

Call for Applications: 5 (5-year) PhD positions, Erasmus School of Law in the department Law & Markets (21 June 2023)

6-month program of support and training for human rights defenders, Marianne Initiative for Human Rights Defenders (6 July 2023)

Events

Conference: The crime of apartheid in South Africa and beyond, University of Nottingham (22 – 23 June 2023)

2023 Summer School Course ‘Human Rights & Persons Deprived of Liberty’, The ERC-IMPACTUM team, the Programme for Studies on Human Rights in Context, the Human Rights Centre, Ghent University, and the Global Campus on Human Rights (27 – 30 June 2023)

Symposium ‘intersecting water, environmental justice and human rights’,
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) (6 July 2023)

Human Rights and Procedure: Perspectives of International Law, Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law (6 – 7 July 2023)

Workshop on Protest Movements and International Law, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (2-3 November 2023)