In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Symposia

27 Sep

[Shayna Bauchner is a researcher in the Asia Division at Human Rights Watch.] On August 1, Myanmar’s commander-in-chief, Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, dressed in civilian clothes, made a televised speech six months to the day after leading a coup that thrust the country back under brutal military rule. Amid claims of establishing a multiparty democracy, the junta leader announced that his manufactured state of emergency,...

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27 Sep

It has now been over six months since the coup by the Myanmar military on 1 February 2021. There are multiple crises at the moment in Myanmar – mass atrocities being committed by the security forces on a daily basis, a devastating Covid-19 pandemic, ongoing armed conflicts in various parts of Myanmar, the continued marginalization of many minorities, and proceedings at international courts related to...

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17 Sep

[Barrie Sander is Assistant Professor of International Justice at Leiden University – Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs.] Aspiring to an academic career has its challenges and each academic discipline has its specificities. International lawyers interested in pursuing a doctoral degree or an academic career in the field of international law face certain challenges which are general in nature, as well as more specific issues...

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26 Aug

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...

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26 Aug

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...

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25 Aug

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...

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25 Aug

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...

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24 Aug

Jodi-Ann Stephenson The socio-political context of colonialism and imperialism, within which the rules on foreign investment protection originated, has had an enduring effect on the evolution of foreign direct investment (‘FDI’) and its protection. Despite the formal ending of colonialism, the imperial space within which the rules of foreign investment protection originated has profoundly impacted the character and development of modern...

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24 Aug

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...

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23 Aug

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...

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02 Aug

Rocío Quintero, Timothy Fish Hodgson and Young Park work at the International Commission of Jurists. This symposium consists of a series of posts authored by the different panelists of a webinar hosted by the International Commission of Jurists titled “COVID-19 and Courts: A Global Trend of Judicial Deference?“ On 11 May 2021, the Administrative Tribunal of Cundinamarca in Colombia ordered  the Colombian Government to...

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30 Jul

Manish Kumar Shrestha is an advocate and PhD candidate at the Nepal Law Campus in Nepal. This symposium consists of a series of blogs authored by the different panelists of a webinar hosted by the International Commission of Jurists titled “COVID-19 and Courts: A Global Trend of Judicial Deference?“ Responding to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nepal announced a nationwide lockdown from 24...

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