Friday, December 25, 2009

Symposium: A Changing of the Guard: The Future of International Law and Development under Obama

Symposium
A Changing of the Guard: The Future of International Law and Development under Obama
North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commerical Regulation

Friday, January 29, 2010
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Kenan-Flagler Business School, Kenan Center
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, North Carolina


Register for the 2010 Symposium


After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the international aid and development policies of the United States and other Western powers were dominated by the Washington Consensus, a standard package of legal and economic reforms designed to allow the free hand of competitive markets to bring economic prosperity and political stability to the developing world. The Consensus stressed the shrinking of states and their regulatory structures; privatization; trade liberalization; protection of individual rights; and the general Westernization of poor countries' legal systems. In the view of most commentators, these Consensus reforms failed to achieve their intended results. Poor countries who adopted them become poorer and less politically stable.
In recent years, U.S. development policy has focused on the importance of healthy institutions. While the Consensus aimed to drastically pare governmental institutions, the new institutional approach acknowledges the vital role of institutions - particularly laws and legal enforcement mechanisms - and focuses on ensuring that those institutions are healthy, high-functioning, and conducive to economic growth and political stability.

This Symposium will explore questions such as:


•Will - or should - the new institutional approach remain at the center of future law and development policy?
•Will other voices prevail, such as the growing call for the United States to stop meddling in the developing world and withdraw entirely from the international development business?
•Will the emergence of China and India as powerful economic and political actors alter the rules of the law and development game?
•Will a bold new vision for international law and development take shape under the Obama administration?
Confirmed symposium panelists include:

•Emily Burrill, University of North Carolina Department of Women's Studies
•Amy Cohen, Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
•James Gathii, Albany Law School
•Margaret Lee, University of North Carolina Department of African and Afro- American Studies
•Ezra Rosser, American University Washington College of Law
•Sophie Smyth, Temple University Beasley School of Law

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