Author: Karen Hoffmann

Write On! Inaugural Postgraduate Conference in International Law and Human Rights, University of Liverpool (deadline April 1)

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The International Law and Human Rights Unit, part of the School of Law and Social Justice at the University of Liverpool, welcomes paper, poster and ‘soapbox’ proposals for its Inaugural Postgraduate Conference in International Law and Human Rights. The conference will take place June 14-15, 2016. The theme of the conference is: ‘International Law and Human Rights in Crisis’. The keynote speech will be delivered by Professor Antonios Tzanakopoulos, University of Oxford. The conference theme should be broadly conceived, and we encourage proposals from any postgraduate/doctoral student specialising in international law, human rights or related subjects. The conference offers a unique opportunity for postgraduate/doctoral students to present and discuss their work in a stimulating and friendly academic environment, among peers with similarly oriented research interests. Abstracts of no more than 300 words can be sent to ilhrucon@liverpool.ac.uk. The deadline for submissions is April 1, 2016.

Please click here for more information about the conference theme and call for papers https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/law-and-social-justice/conferences/inaugural-postgraduate-conference-in-international-law-and-human-rights/

Write On! Amsterdam Law Forum Call for Papers (deadline 4 April)

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Amsterdam Law Forum, the student-edited online journal of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam’s Law Faculty, welcomes submissions for its upcoming issue. We encourage submissions of original scientific articles, commentaries, and opinion articles on a broad range of international and transnational legal issues.

The journal, available through http://www.amsterdamlawforum.org, offers a meaningful platform where established scholars and young academics can meet to discuss, analyse and interpret issues of an international and transnational legal nature. In the past ALF has been fortunate to publish contributions from well-known experts and promising Ph.D. researchers from around the world.

Please note that submissions must be in English, and submitted electronically through its official website. Deadline for submissions is 4 April 2016.

For more information, please visit http://www.amsterdamlawforum.org or email Lana Bosch at l.g.p.bosch [at] student.vu.nl.

You go, ‘Grrl! Anna Dolidze nominated for Georgia Supreme Court

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IntLawGrrl and Georgian Deputy Minister of Defence Anna Dolidze has been nominated by the President of Georgia as a candidate for that country’s Supreme Court. “This is a person who for years fought against injustice, she stood out for her professionalism [and] fearless position on one of the most high-profile case[s] of the previous government,” said President Giorgi Margvelashvili.

Prior to her role at the Ministry of Defence, Anna was Professor of Law at the University of Western Ontario. She has also served at a number of international and non-governmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch, the Russian Justice Initiative, and Save the Children. From 2004 to 2006, Anna was the President of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, the largest legal advocacy organization in the Republic of Georgia. She also served at the National Constitutional Commission, Commission for the Human Rights in Prisons and the Expert Commission for Georgia’s European Integration.

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Anna has taught and lectured at Duke University, Helsinki España-Human Dimension in Madrid, Sorbonne University in Paris, and Elmira Maximum Security Correctional Facility in New York State. She has co-authored a series of policy reports including a UN-sponsored report on the privatization of the internally displaced persons’ collective settlements (2005) and a policy proposal for the establishment of a truth commission in Georgia published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2012). Heartfelt congratulations, Anna!

Introducing Mirte Postema

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Mirte Postema CIDH hearing Aug 2014It’s our great pleasure today to introduce Mirte Postema as an IntLawGrrls contributor. Mirte is an expert on human rights and rule of law in Latin America. She is currently Fellow for Human Rights, Criminal Justice and Prison Reform in the Americas at the Stanford Human Rights Center, Stanford Law School.

Prior to joining the Stanford Human Rights Center, Mirte led the Judicial Independence Program at the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF) in Washington, D.C. She led DPLF’s research and advocacy on judicial independence, transparency and accountability, the selection processes of high-level judges, and judicial reform, with a special focus on Central America and Mexico. In that role, Mirte collaborated with civil society organizations, associations of judges, governmental entities in Washington, D.C. and in Latin America, and international organizations, such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Mirte, who is originally from the Netherlands, got her law degree–specializing in European comparative law, international law and EU law–from Maastricht University. She also earned an MSc in Social Sciences of Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science, as well as a certificate in Latin American Studies from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her first post will discuss the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH). Heartfelt welcome!

Write On! PluriCourts conference ‘Adjudicating international trade and investment disputes’ (deadline March 1)

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The PluriCourts Centre of Excellence at the University of Oslo is organizing a conference titled ‘Adjudicating international trade and investment disputes: between interaction and isolation.’ The conference will be hosted at the Faculty of Law of the University of Oslo 25-26 August 2016. Abstracts are due March 1, 2016.

The conference aims to focus on the relationship, interactions and comparisons between the international trade and investment regimes in the context of adjudication of disputes. The conference will welcome research across the disciplines of law, political science, and philosophy relating to three themes: the new mega-regionals, comparisons and practices, and cross-fertilization and learning. Historically, the global regulation of international trade and investment relations have been closely interrelated; but in the post-war period, international trade law and international investment law developed on largely divergent paths. While international trade regulation has culminated in a multilateral regime with a permanent dispute settlement mechanism, the international regulation of foreign direct investment is primarily governed by 3500 essentially bilateral treaty relationships calling for ad hoc investor – state arbitration potentially to be hosted by a variety of international institutions. Despite these seemingly distinct structures, there is a recent trend that some say signal a move towards regime convergence: most clearly seen in the rise of mega-regional free trade agreements (FTAs) with investment chapters.

This potential convergence may be deceiving, however. The investment chapters of FTAs remain separate from the rest of the agreements and provide for distinct rules and procedures on dispute settlement. Moreover, issues of overlap between trade chapters and investment chapters have not been resolved, which means that the same case could possibly be raised simultaneously in two separate disputes under the same FTA. Legal disputes based on investment chapters in FTAs to date (ie under the NAFTA and DR-CAFTA) appear to interpret the investment protection chapters as standalone agreements with little or no reference to other sections of the FTAs. Despite the limitations to integration that this new generation of trade and investment agreements may represent, there are other areas of interaction between the trade and investment regimes that could provide better evidence of a gradual move towards cohesion. This conference aims to look at the development of the new mega-regionals, but also the ways (or lack thereof) that the trade and investment regimes share practices and cross-fertilize.

For more information and submission procedures, see: Call for Papers – Trade Investment Conference [pdf]

 

Go On! AEL summer courses on Human Rights Law and Law of the EU (deadline April 4)

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The Academy of European Law (AEL) holds two summer courses each year, on Human Rights Law and the Law of the European Union.  The 2016 Human Rights Law Course will be held from 20 June to 1 July. It comprises a General Course on ‘The Sources of International Human Rights Law’ by Professor Jean d’Aspremont (University of Manchester and University of Amsterdam) and a series of specialized courses on the topic of ‘The Sources of Human Rights’ by leading scholars from universities all over the world.

The 2016 Law of the European Union Course will be held from 4 July to 15 July. It comprises a General Course on ‘The Global Reach of EU Law’ by Professor Joanne Scott (University College London) and a series of specialized courses on the same topic by leading scholars and practitioners in the Law of the European Union.

The two-week courses are held at the European University Institute, in the hills above Florence, and participants leave with positive memories of the extremely high intellectual standard of the courses, the EUI facilities including the library, the beautiful venue, and the interaction with other participants from all over the world. Some participants come to study at the EUI in later years, and it is not unusual to see participants returning for a second or third summer course.

The deadline for applications  is Monday 4 April 2016. For further information, visit the Academy’s website at http://www.eui.eu/DepartmentsAndCentres/AcademyEuropeanLaw/SummerSchool/Index.aspx

On the Job! Max Planck Group Leader in Bogotá, Colombia (deadline May 15)

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The Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg) and Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) are looking to hire a Principal Investigator to lead a newly established Max Planck Tandem Group in Transformations of Public Law. Other than research, responsibilities include supervision of two doctoral students at Universidad de Los Andes. There is no mandatory teaching load.

The Group will be located in Bogotá, and the Leader will be expected to reside in that city. The initiative will provide funding for at least one extended research stay per year of the Group at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. Additional information may be found here. The deadline for applications is May 15th, 2016.

Introducing Dorothy Makaza

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2016-02-15 12.11.01It’s our great pleasure today to introduce Dorothy Makaza as an IntLawGrrls contributor. Dorothy is a DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst) scholar and a PhD candidate at the University of Hamburg. Her research aims to identify effective enforcement mechanisms in international law within the framework of African criminal justice. Her passsion and specializations lie in the fields of international criminal law, human rights law, international humanitarian law and conflict management.

Dorothy holds a master’s degree in human rights and conflict management from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Italy, as well as a bachelor’s degree in law (LLB) from the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. In 2012, Dorothy interned for several months at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (Institute for African Affairs). Thereafter, she worked for various international organizations, including Amnesty for Women, an organization she continues to be professionally affiliated with. Her first post will discuss the case of Onesphore Rwabukombe and universal jurisdiction. Heartfelt welcome!

Introducing Elvira Domínguez-Redondo

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elviradominguez redondo pictureIt’s our great pleasure today to introduce Dr. Elvira Domínguez-Redondo (LLB, Dip. Business Management, M.Phil, PhD) as an IntLawGrrls contributor. Elvira is Associate Professor of International Law at Middlesex University, London (UK) and Adjunct Lecturer of the Irish Center for Human Rights (NUI Galway, Ireland). She is a member of the Geneva (Switzerland) based think-tank Universal Rights Group. In the past, Elvira held different academic positions, at the Transitional Justice Institute (University of Ulster, Northern Ireland); the Irish Centre for Human Rights (NUI University, Ireland); the University of Alcalá de Henares (Spain); and University of Carlos III de Madrid (Spain). She has worked as a consultant with the Special Rapporteur on Torture at the Office of the High Commisisoner for Human Rights (Switzerland).

Elvira specializes in international law and human rights legal theory. She is the author of two books, Public Special Procedures of the UN Commission on Human Rights and Minority Rights in Asia (co-authored with Prof. J Castellino). Elvira has written a wide range of articles on international law and human rights topics for academic journals. She has been one of the five independent experts from the Americas and Europe to carry out an Observation Mission on the situation of human rights defenders in Mexico.  She has participated in the European Union-China, Irish-Chinese and German-Chinese human rights dialogues. She was also engaged with the Latin-American and European Human Rights Network. Among other projects under her responsibility she led the British Council DelPHE-Iraq project implementing the first Human Rights Masters programme in Iraq, at Duhok University.

Her first post will discuss the opinion of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in the Assange case. Heartfelt welcome!

On the Job! Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, University of MN Law School

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humanrightscentThe Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota Law School is seeking an Executive Director. Deadline to apply is April 1, 2016.

The Executive Director will oversee administration and management of the Human Rights Center.  Responsibilities include fundraising and development, budget planning and oversight of sponsored projects, monitoring the progress of projects, grant writing, student mentoring, fostering collaborative opportunities; coordinating events and conference, writing and editing reports to funding agencies, supervision, and outreach. This is a full-time, mid-level position that requires a J.D., previous leadership and experience in human rights, international law or related fields. Salary: low 60’s.

The Human Rights Center works locally, nationally, and internationally to provide training, educational materials, and assistance to professionals, students, and volunteers working to promote and protect human rights. The Human Rights Center was founded on December 10, 1988, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Center works at the nexus of scholarship and practice in the human rights field, seeking to maximize the effectiveness of human rights advocates.

For a full description or to apply, go to http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/employment/index.html and reference job #307634.