Vacancy: Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at UMass Amherst, USA – Law & Inequality (selection begins 15 October 2019)

The interdisciplinary Legal Studies Program of the Department of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst invites applications for a faculty position at the Assistant Professor rank expected to start on September 1, 2020. Applications are welcomed from scholars studying law and inequality. Substantive areas could include access to justice; bias in the administration of justice; human and civil rights; social inequality and discrimination; crime and criminal justice; citizenship and immigration; gender, race, and the law; environmental and technological injustices; law and social movements; disparities in the labor force; and other interdisciplinary areas of study. Applications are encouraged from scholars studying American, comparative, and/or international law and inequality topics.

The successful candidate should exhibit significant promise in scholarly publishing, a commitment to teaching excellence, and the ability to contribute to the intellectual growth of the Legal Studies Program and the Department of Political Science. The capacity to secure extramural funding will be looked upon favorably. Applicants must have earned a PhD in political science or a closely related social science discipline by the starting date of the appointment. 

Legal Studies at UMass is the oldest undergraduate liberal arts program for the study of law and society in the country, and the only one in New England at a public university. The Program is housed in the Department of Political Science and maintains its own undergraduate major. The expanding Legal Studies Program is a center for ambitious intellectual activity and research that addresses important questions about the place of law in societies around the world while teaching undergraduate Legal Studies students and Political Science graduate students. The Department of Political Science is committed to teaching and research that crosses traditional disciplinary and sub-field boundaries and engages a broad range of methodological approaches.

Applicants should submit a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, up to three samples of written work, evidence of quality teaching (such as summaries of teaching evaluations and/or a teaching statement), and contact information for at least three reference writers who are willing to submit letters upon request, through the UMass online applications system (available at the end of September 2019). In addition to the materials noted above, applicants should also submit a one-page diversity statement that discusses past or future contributions to inclusive excellence in the areas of research, teaching and/or outreach. 

Applicants are required to apply through the UMass online application system, unless unable to do so because of lack of computer access or disability.

Inquiries about the position can be addressed to Associate Professor Jamie Rowen, the Search Committee Chair, at jrowen [at] legal (dot) umass (dot) edu.

Review of applications begins on 15 October 2019 and will continue until the position is filled. 

Vacancy: Assistant professor in Women’s & Gender Studies | Specialization in Critical Race Studies | Carleton University, Canada (selection begins 31 October 2019)

The Pauline Jewett Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies at Carleton University invites applications from qualified candidates for a full-time tenure-track faculty appointment in Women’s and Gender Studies with a specialization in Critical Race Studies at the rank of Assistant Professor beginning July 1, 2020.

The candidate will be expected to do research and teaching in the area of critical race studies. Additional expertise in any of the following areas would be especially welcome: disability studies, Indigenous studies, African studies, and/or transnational and diaspora studies.

Applications will be considered starting 31 October 2019 and continue until the position is filled.

For more information, please see the full vacancy notice.

Postdoctoral fellowship & doctoral scholarships available | Hamburg Institute for Social Research (deadline: 1 October)

The Hamburg Institute for Social Research is offering three doctoral scholarships and one post-doctoral fellowship in its Research Group on Sociology of Law, which has been newly established in cooperation with the University of Bern. In addition, two PhD scholarships are available in the Research Group on Democracy & Statehood, and two more in the Research Group on Macro-Violence.

The deadline for all applications is 1 October 2019.

For more information, please visit the vacancy pages for the PhD scholarships and the post-doctoral fellowship.

LDRN member publications: July 2019

Klaus D. Beiter, Where Have All the Scientific and Academic Freedoms Gone? And What Is “Adequate for Science”? – The Right to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress and Its Applications, Israel Law Review, Vol. 52, No. 2, 2019, 233–291.

Deborah Casalin, Human Rights Treaty Mechanisms and Reparation for International Humanitarian Law Violations: Fragmentation, Partiality, Selective Justice?,  Human Rights & International Legal Discourse, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2019,  2 – 20.

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

Law and Development: New Institutional Approaches from the Global South | University of São Paulo Law Faculty & FGV Direito São Paulo, 5 – 6 August 2019

Two LDRN partner institutions, University of São Paulo Law Faculty & FGV Direito São Paulo, will be co-hosting the event “Law & Development: New Institutional Approaches from the Global South” on 5 – 6 August 2019.

The event will include a keynote lecture by Prof. Katharina Pistor (Columbia Law School), as well as roundtables on:

  • Law, political economy and institutions;
  • Democratic institutions in movement;
  • Corruption and reform in the Global South;
  • Financial regulation; and
  • Socio-legal architecture of markets.

There will also be a book launch for “The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality” by Katharina Pistor.

See here for further information

Register on the event website

Four vacancies at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague

The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam is currently recruiting for the following positions at its campus in The Hague:

  • Two Assistant Professors in Migration and Development (deadline – 5 September 2019)
  • Post-doc, Sustainable Development, Inequalities and Environmental Justice (deadline – 8 September 2019)
  • Full Professor of Technology and Global Development (deadline – 15 September 2019)

Please visit the ISS vacancies page for more information. 

LDRN member publications: May – June 2019

Karin Arts, Children’s Rights and Climate Change, in Claire Fenton-Glynn (ed.), Children’s Rights and Sustainable Development: Interpreting the UNCRC for Future Generations, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019, 216 – 235.

Wouter Vandenhole, Towards a Fourth Moment in Law and Development?, 12/2 Law and Development Review 2019, 265-283.

Wouter Vandenhole, Children’s Rights and Sustainable Development from a ‘Law and Development’ Perspective, in Claire Fenton-Glynn (ed.), Children’s Rights and Sustainable Development. Interpreting the UNCRC for Future Generations, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019, 12-30.

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

Second LDRN PhD summer school successfully rounded off at ISS, The Hague

Report by Jeff Handmaker (ISS) – academic coordinator LDRN Summer School

From 24-28 June 2019, the 2nd LDRN PhD Summer School (Workshop) took place.

The course was organised in The Hague on behalf of the Law and Development Research Network (LDRN) by the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam in the framework of the Integrating Normative and Functional Approaches to the Rule of Law and Human Rights Project and the Governance, Law and Social Justice Research Group.

The academic programme involved contributions from colleagues in the LDRN and in particular Warwick University, University of the Witwatersrand, Antwerp University and Leiden University as well as The Hague University of Applied Sciences.

The guiding questions of the workshop were:  what does law seek to accomplish, and how is society affected by it? And from a researcher standpoint, how do I identify synergies between my research subject and those of others? 

As the organizers noted, law’s values and law’s function are generally discussed as entirely separate topics. But a discussion of legal equality in the distribution of resources or tackling foreign-based corruption would ring rather hollow if it didn’t engage with how law functioned (or was dysfunctional) from a governance standpoint.  Similarly, understanding the social working of law and in particular the possibilities for individual and state accountability in a conflict setting has crucial implications for how the normative content and doctrinal principles underpinning international criminal law ought to be interpreted and – possibly – reframed.

Further, the positionality of the researcher should be regarded in a critically-reflexive manner. This is especially crucial when researching legal values and law’s function in a law and development context where researchers frequently confront a range of complex societal, economic, gendered and cultural dilemmas, including socio-economic and white privilege and cultural essentialism.

The 2019 LDRN PhD Course involved 17 doctoral candidates from 12 different academic institutions, most of which are affiliated to the network as LDRN partner institutions. Participants hailed originally from a wide range of countries, including Brazil, Sweden, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lebanon, Bosnia, Cameroon, India, Germany, The Netherlands and Italy. Most participants were of a legal background and based at a law faculty, although most combined different legal (and related) fields and disciplines to discuss the role of law in relation to development questions both occurring in the global north and in the global south.

In the workshop, we paid particular attention both to law’s embedded values as well as its functional character. It was expected that, from the course, participants would draw insights on some of the methodological, ethical and theoretical considerations relevant for these aspects of the law and development research field. The course involved a diverse range of interactive pedagogical methods of teaching and learning, from interactive lectures and seminars, to individual methods clinics, group work sessions, a field visit, an expressive workshop by Aminata Cairo involving movement and role-play and several evening activities where participants continued to engage in debates and discussions.

Each participant in the 2019 LDRN course received an individual certificate of attendance. ISS determined the course to be equivalent to 3 ECTS (European Study Credits).

Call for applications: SUSTJUSTICE postgraduate certificate programme | University of Antwerp | 10 February – 30 April 2020

The University of Antwerp Law Faculty’s Law and Development Research Group will be running a post-graduate certificate programme on “Sustainable Development and Global Justice” (SUSTJUSTICE) from 10 February to 30 April 2020. SUSTJUSTICE offers a comprehensive teaching programme based on the research lines of the Law and Development Research Group. These research lines contribute to SUSTJUSTICE’s four compulsory anchor courses, i.e.:

  • International Law and Sustainable Development,
  • Human Rights and Global Justice,
  • Law in Developing Countries, and
  • External Actors in Aid, Trade and Investment.

SUSTJUSTICE brings together a diverse group of leading experts from the North and South to introduce salient features of their disciplines, and to engage students in understanding and reflecting on key challenges for sustainable development and global justice.

Find out more on the SUSTJUSTICE website

In previous years, the programme was generously supported by the Belgian development cooperation (VLIR-UOS) which facilitated scholarships for a limited number students from the Global South. While scholarship applications are invited for SUSTJUSTICE, scholarship availability is contingent on the approval of the programme by VLIR-UOS and can only be confirmed in October 2019. 

See the list of eligible scholarship countries

Deadline for scholarship applicants: 30th September 2019

Deadline for self-funded applicants: 1st December 2019

 

New journal issue: Peace Human Rights Governance (open access)

The second 2019 issue of the University of Padova Human Rights Centre’s scientific journal, Peace Human Rights Governance (PHRG), has just been released. It is available in open access at the PHRG website.

The issue includes articles on contextualizing children’s rights protection in the EU; urban policies with respect to the Alevi population in Turkey; cities as actors in migration governance; and inclusionary and exclusionary practices relating to smart cities.

PHRG is an academic peer-reviewed journal published three times a year in English by Padova University Press. It aims to:

  • constitute an innovative scientific resource within the increasing and multi-faceted global human rights studies communityulti-faceted global human rights studies community
  • present original contributions, both theoretical, methodological and empirical, to current human rights issues
  • actively favour the development of a solid multi- and inter-disciplinary, and multi-level approach to human rights research and dissemination

Access the issue here