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[Naimeh Masumy is a research fellow at the Swiss International Law School and a dispute resolution expert specialized in energy and investment disputes.] A famous Persian proverb states, “This person resembles someone who has lost his horse and yet, is looking for its horseshoes”. This sentiment aptly describes the current reform efforts being undertaken by UNCITRAL Working Group III (“WGIII”) to address the ‘legitimacy crisis’...

[Mohammad Zayaan is an undergraduate law student at Gujarat National Law University. He can be reached at zayaan44@icloud.com.] Background The Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (‘PSA’) came into force in 1978, and authorises preventive detention of individuals for up to two years without trial. It is applicable in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, a part of the disputed territory of Kashmir whose effective...

Alicia Nicholls Caribbean small island developing States (SIDS) joined with other United Nations (UN) members to sign on to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. These 17 goals and their 169 targets form the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, agreed in 2015, covering areas as diverse as no poverty, zero hunger, gender equality, climate action, peace justice and strong...

Gerardo Centeno García Mexico’s 2013 Reforma Energetica (Energy Reform, RE) was a constitutional reform that allowed the participation of private companies (national or foreign) in the Mexican Energy Sector (MES), previously reserved solely for State-owned enterprises (SOEs). This constitutional reform modified articles 25, 27, and 28 of the Mexican Constitution (CPEUM), entering into force on December 20, 2013. To help the...

Antonius R. Hippolyte & Jason K. Haynes  Most developing countries still lack the industrial capacity to participate in international trade in a manner similar to industrialised countries, whose industrial transformation was catalysed at the end of the 18th century. Thus, advocates of the neoliberal international economic order have long touted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as the panacea for development and economic...

Ximena Sierra-Camargo In Colombia in the 1990s, a mining boom led to a significant increase in the extractive industries, including large-scale gold mining. This boom was provoked by legal and institutional reform of the framework of the Colombian constitutional State, and following the guidelines of transnational actors like the World Bank, who sought to standardise mining regulation across Latin America. The new...

Nicolás M. Perrone & Leonardo E. Stanley The 1990s witnessed a surge in economic and legal reforms that prioritised markets over government in allocating economic resources, installing a new institutional ruling. For neoliberals, open economies and free markets forces would bring laggards towards convergence. Rational agents' investment decisions might place countries into a stable, long-run growth path. In the field of...

Mohsen al Attar and Rafael Quintero Godinez Investment is a heavy word. It stumbles rather than rolls off the tongue, perhaps because the speaker is aware of its convoluted character. It invokes images of factories, infrastructure, workers, money, and men (in suits or in hard hats, usually both). Most of all, investment conveys an evolutionary trajectory; one that is ideological and...

[Avani Laad is a penultimate year law student at Symbiosis Law School Pune, India, and represented her college in the 19th John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition 2021] Introduction In the wake of the world’s response to Covid-19, an emergence of the phenomenon of vaccine nationalism has taken place. Vaccine nationalism refers to the prioritization of a State’s own domestic needs for vaccine supply, at the expense of other...

[Gabriella Citroni, Researcher in International Law and Adjunct Professor of International Human Rights Law at the University of Milano-Bicocca [gabriella.citroni@unimib.it]; she is also a member of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. The opinions expressed in this post are strictly personal and do not in any way reflect the position of the United Nations Working Group...

[Graeme Reid is the LGBT rights director at Human Rights Watch.] During Pride month in June, LGBT rights once again became a flashpoint in Europe, where the rights of LGBT people have become a wedge issue, deployed for political effect. This simmering conflict is coming to a head between Hungary and Poland and the EU. What is happening in Europe raises questions about the limits of...