Prof. Joanna Botha (LDRN steering committee) contributes to UN expert seminar on the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

On 20 – 21 October 2020, Prof. Joanna Botha (Nelson Mandela University, South Africa), a current member of the LDRN steering committee, contributed to an international expert seminar on the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), on the invitation of the Chairperson–Rapporteur of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards for the ICERD.

The purpose of the seminar was to consider elements of a draft additional protocol to the Convention and to prepare recommendations for new normative standards to combat all forms of contemporary racism, including incitement to racial and religious hatred. Experts’ critical insights were solicited in view of preparing the Ad Hoc Committee’s report to the UN Human Rights Council on its 11th session.

Prof. Botha’s contributions were based on her research on the regulation of hate crimes and hate speech and the prohibition of unfair discrimination in the South African context. This research addresses the complex intersection of freedom of expression, equality and dignity – not only for the individual, but also for vulnerable groups.

New book: Sam Adelman & Abdul Paliwala (eds), “The Limits of Law and Development – Neoliberalism, Governance and Social Justice” (Routledge, 2021)

This book examines the field of ‘law and development’ and asks whether the concept of development and discourses on law and development have outlived their usefulness.

The contributors ask whether the focus on these concepts should rather be shifted to social injustices such as patriarchy, impoverishment, human rights violations, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, and global heating? If we abandoned the idea of development, would this commonly understood (though contested) term be replaced by another, equally problematic one? In raising these questions, the contributors make use of  historical and contemporary case studies to analyse the links between conventional academic approaches to law and development, neoliberal governance and activism.

Dr. Sam Adelman and Prof. Abdul Paliwala are respectively Reader and Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Warwick (an LDRN partner institution). Sam Adelman is currently a member of the LDRN steering committee.

Save the date! Law & Development Research Network (LDRN) online panel discussion – Implications of the global pandemic for Law & Development research agendas – Wednesday 9 December, 13h00 UTC

Even though the Law & Development Research Network (LDRN)‘s next annual conference has been postponed (physically) until 2021, we aren’t letting 2020 go by without a chance to meet again (virtually) and discuss law and development research!
 
Please save the date on Wednesday 9 December (13h00 – 15h00 UTC) for an  online LDRN panel discussion on the “Implications of the global pandemic for law and development research agendas”. The panel will be hosted on Teams by the 2021 conference organizers at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa.
 
More information on the programme and registration will be available soon – please check back on the LDRN website (LawDev.org), or subscribe to the LDRN newsletter to stay up to date!

Researchers from LDRN partner institutions participate in legal mobilization research theme group

For the 2020/21 Academic Year, several LDRN-institutionally affiliated researchers will participate in a research theme group focusing on Legal Mobilization (Legal Mobilization: Analysing Law-Based Advocacy) at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) in Amsterdam, with support from the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. 

Jeff Handmaker (ISS, Erasmus University), Daphina Misiedjan (ISS, Erasmus University), Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh (Leiden University), Frederiek de Vlaming (University of Amsterdam / Nuhanovic Foundation) and Jackie Dugard (Wits University) will also pursue individual research projects as NIAS Fellows in residence for a period of 5 months (February – June 2021). Details of their individual projects are available on the theme group page.

Through the legal mobilization research theme group, these researchers are both interrogating existing literature on legal mobilization as well as the foundational, liberal values that underpin state-level and inter-governmental systems of human rights norm-making and enforcement. Case studies will be analysed from South Africa, Suriname, Vanuatu and elsewhere, also within United Nations and other institutions, and on a variety of themes, including climate change, the rights of nature, migration and international criminal justice, and Covid-19.

*UPDATED* Upcoming academic opportunities: September and later deadlines

Calls for papers

COVID-19 and the law in Africa | Journal of African Law (deadline: 30 September 2020)

*NEW* Winter 2021 (Virtual) Symposium – Pandemic: From Disparity to Equity | Detroit Mercy Law Review (deadline: 31 October 2020)

Vacancies

2021-2022 Fellowship – Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study | Harvard University, USA (deadline: 10 September 2020)

Managing Editor (International Law) | Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law, Heidelberg, Germany (deadline: 15 September 2020)

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor – Criminology, Law and Society | George Mason University Department of Criminology, Law and Society, USA (deadline: 15 September 2020)

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship – Intellectual Property, Innovation & Development | Department of Commercial Law, University of Cape Town, South Africa (deadline: 30 September 2020)

Assistant Professor – Gender and Sexual Violence- Gender and Women’s Studies | University of California Berkeley, USA (deadline: 5 October 2020)

Assistant Professor, Scrivner Institute of Public Policy – Josef Korbel School of International Studies | University of Denver, USA (deadline: 1 November 2020)

*NEW* Assistant Professor Global Indigenous Studies & Assistant Professor Global Racial Studies | University of California Irvine, USA (deadline: 1 November 2020 / until filled)

Associate Professor (tenure track) – S.J. Quinney College of Law | University of Utah, USA (deadline: rolling)

LDRN member publications – August 2020

Klaus D. Beiter, Extraterritorial human rights obligations to “civilize” intellectual property law: Access to textbooks in Africa, copyright, and the right to education, Journal of World Intellectual Property, Volume 23, Issue 3-4, July 2020, 232-266 (open access)

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LDRN members are welcome to announce their latest publications via this list – please send references and links to the Editor by the final Monday of the month.

LDRN partner University of Antwerp Law and Development Research Group participates in launching official Belgian business & human rights website

The Law and Development Research Group at the University of Antwerp Law Faculty – an LDRN partner institution – recently participated in launching the official website on the Belgian National Baseline Assessment on business and human rights, together with HIVA-KULeuven and the International Peace Information Service (academic partners in the research team) and the Belgian Federal Institute for Sustainable Development and the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation (commissioning authorities).

The website seeks to inform stakeholders about the National Baseline Assessment, facilitate their active involvement and open communication channels with the research team. The website is available in English, French and Dutch, and can be viewed here.

 

LDRN member publications – July 2020

Patience N. Agwenjang, The Tussle with Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law: The Case of Cameroon,  School of Oriental and African Studies Law Journal, Vol. VII(I), 2020

Patience N. Agwenjang, COVID-19: Rethinking Emergency Preparedness and Response in Cameroon, Participedia – COVID-19 Response Collection, May 2020
 

Gamze Erdem Türkelli, Official Development Assistance (ODA), Aid Dynamics and Sustainable Development, in Walter Leal Filho et al (eds), Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Partnership for the Goals, Springer2020p. 1-13

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LDRN members are welcome to announce their latest publications via this list – please send references and links to the Editor by the final Monday of the month.

Upcoming academic opportunities: August and later deadlines

Calls for papers

A Crisis within a Crisis: Global Pandemics and Displacement | Journal of Internal Displacement (deadline: 1 September 2020)

COVID-19 and the law in Africa | Journal of African Law (deadline: 30 September 2020)

Vacancies

Country experts on citizenship laws | European University Institute Global Citizenship Observatory – remote (deadline: 31 August 2020)

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor – Criminology, Law and Society | George Mason University Department of Criminology, Law and Society, USA (deadline: 15 September 2020)

(Associate) professor of environmental law and natural resources | University of Iowa College of Law, USA (deadline: rolling)

Various tenured/tenure-track positions | University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, USA (deadline: rolling)

The IEL Collective launches conversations on COVID-19 and international economic law

The IEL Collective has recently developed a bank of resources on international economic law, including blogs, articles and a YouTube channel called The IEL Collective Conversations, which is currently focused on exploring different dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic and international economic law.  These resources can be found here.

The IEL Collective and its members have also produced a series of articles on The IEL Collective Medium Publication on COVID-19 and IEL, including ‘International Economic Law and COVID-19’ by The IEL Collective; ‘Subverting the Logic of Utilitarianism in Times of COVID-19’ by Gamze Erdem Türkelli; ‘International Public Finance and COVID-19: A New Architecture is Urgently Needed’ by Celine Tan and ‘COVID-19 and the Precarity of International Investment Law’ by Daria Davitti, Jean Ho, Paolo Vargiu and Anil Yilmaz Vastardis.

The IEL Collective was launched at its inaugural conference in November 2019 to provide a space for critical reflection on the complex interactions in the growing field of international economic law. The Collective currently has 12 partner institutions from 10 universities from the UK, Sweden and Colombia, including LDRN partners Warwick Law School and Cardiff Law and Global Justice. The Collective aims to explore how epistemological and methodological diversity in the discipline can contribute towards the development of a more holistic landscape of scholarship on law and the governance of the global economy. The community would like to stimulate conversations about plurality, representation and criticality in researching, teaching and practising international economic law and spark new conversations about the future of the discipline. 

The Collective welcomes contributions by scholars, practitioners and anyone else interested in the relationship between law and the global economy. Please email: ielcollective [at] warwick.ac.uk or check out @iel_collective on Twitter.