Events and Announcements: October 25, 2015

Announcements

• The EIUC and KU Leuven are launching a new MOOC (massive open online course) on the EU and Human Rights. A short description from their website: “Whether you are an EU citizen or not, this course concerns you! The EU is a major global actor in the field of human rights. EU treaties state that human rights are a fundamental value of the Union, which must be a ‘silver thread’ in all its policies. The EU now acts within an impressive array of competences, and therefore has the potential to impact – positively or negatively – anyone’s human rights.” You can register now and find more information here.
• The Centre for Business and Commercial Laws (CBCL) of National Law Institute University, Bhopal in collaboration with Tanikella Rastogi Associates, is organising the latest edition of the NLIU-TRA Contract Drafting Competition.The participants are required to draft a contract as per instructions provided to them. Subsequently, one representative from the top four teams will be interviewed on the contract for award of rankings.The last date for the submission of the draft is 22^nd November, 2015 (11:59 pm). Submission of the draft shall be considered as registration of the team. A maximum of two persons can participate as a team for the competition. The dates of the telephonic negotiation shall be informed to the qualifying participants at a later stage. More information can be found here, the rules here and the case study here.

Calls for Papers/Abstracts:

• Call for papers: TDM special issue on international arbitration involving commercial and investment disputes in Africa. This special issue will explore topics of particular interest and relevance to international arbitration in light of Africa’s unique and evolving situation. The issue will focus on sub-Saharan Africa and will address issues pertaining to both commercial and investment arbitration. It will also likely explore alternative methods for resolving disputes, including litigation, mediation, and local dispute-resolution mechanisms. This issue will be edited by Thomas R. Snider (Greenberg Traurig LLP), Professor Won Kidane (Seattle University Law School and the Addis Transnational Law Group), and Perry S. Bechky (International Trade & Investment Law PLLC).
• The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law invites submissions for an interdisciplinary conference on the theme “Inequality and Human Rights,” to be held April 7-8, 2016.Since the current global financial crisis began in 2008, income and wealth inequality both within and between countries has come under attack from multiple perspectives. While there is much methodological debate about how best to measure economic inequality globally, many of the figures are alarming. We invite papers from any discipline that consider whether international human rights law, movements, and discourses have, could or should engage with the problem of economic inequality nationally or internationally. Are human rights frameworks equipped to address economic inequality? Might their promotion foreclose other, more effective, vocabularies and strategies aimed at economic justice? How might human rights frameworks need to change to contribute to a more egalitarian world? Please send an abstract of under 600 words to Julia Dehm (jdehm@law.utexas.edu) by December 1, 2015. More information can be found here.

Events

• The UN Charter turns 70 this week, and the University of Georgia School of Law is joining in the global celebration – it’s also the 38th birthday of the school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center. Monday, October 26, from 4-6 p.m., will mark the rededication of the Louis B. Sohn Library on International Relations in its new home, in the renovated Center. Dr. Kannan Rajarathinam (Georgia law LLM’88), Head of Office, UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, Basra, will speak on a critical topic: “The United Nations at 70: Pursuing Peace in the 21st Century.” Also giving remarks – on Georgia Law luminaries like Professors Sohn, Professor and former U.S. Secretary of State Rusk, Professor Gabriel Wilner, and Professor Sigmund Cohn – will be Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge, Associate Dean Diane Marie Amann, Professor Harlan Cohen, and alums Dorinda Dallmeyer and Ken Dious. Details can be found here and the event will be livestreamed here.

• On November 20-21, 2015, the International Nuremberg Principles Academy will hold the conference “The Nuremberg Principles 70 Years Later: Contemporary Challenges”. The conference will take place on the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Nuremberg trials. The conference program can be found here.

• The Washington D.C. Delegation of the ICRC announces a panel on Wednesday, November 4th from 5:30-7pm at Georgetown Law School titled “Urban Warfare: Effects of Explosive Weapons on the Civilian Population.”  The panel is inspired by the ICRC’s recent report on the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. The panel features Commander Mike Adams, Jonathan Horowitz, Chris Harland, and Gary Solis as the moderator. Drinks will be served starting at 5pm, and the panel will begin at 5:30, ending at 7pm with time for questions. The panel will be held in McDonough 203 at the Georgetown University Law Center.  

• The Eighth Annual Space, Cyber and Telecommunications Washington DC conference hosted by the University of Nebraska College of Law taking place Oct. 29^th and 30^th at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill will cover topics at the forefront of current policy discussions: U.S. commercial space legislation and cybersecurity. The conference will include presentations from the top lawyers and policy-makers at government agencies, such as FAA, FCC, NASA, US State Dept., US Cyber Command, and private corporations, including SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Planetary Resources, Boeing, Microsoft, and Comcast. This year, the space law portion of the conference will include panel discussions of current space legislation. The last major revisions to US commercial space legislation occurred over a decade ago. Choices that will be made in the legislation will impact the competitiveness of and investment in the US commercial space industry, one of critical importance to the US economy. The following day, the cyber law portion of the conference will feature panel discussions on “cybersecurity.” Despite its importance across many domains, cybersecurity is not a well-defined concept. The meaning and scope of cybersecurity problems, and the viability of potential solutions to these problems, differ substantially between, e.g., civilian, criminal, and national security institutions, between large and small businesses, between commercial, infrastructure, and consumer uses. The purpose of this event is to explore what different stakeholders mean when discussing “cybersecurity,” and in particular how these understandings relate to or conflict with one another. For more information, including how to register, click here. 

Our previous events and announcements post can be found here. If you would like to post an announcement on Opinio Juris, please contact us with a one-paragraph description of your announcement along with hyperlinks to more information.