The Socio-Legal Review, a student-edited, peer-reviewed journal which is published by the Law and Society Committee, National Law School of India University, Bangalore, is going into its twelfth year of publication.

The Socio-Legal Review is currently inviting submissions for its twelfth volume to be published in 2016 and since it is now a biannual publication, it will be published in two issues this year. The deadline for sending in submissions is November 1st, 2015.

The necessary details about the journal and how to get published can be found here (PDF-file).

The Utrecht Journal of International and European Law is issuing a Call for Papers for its upcoming Special Issue on ‘Intellectual Property in International and European Law’. With technological advancement and innovative practices occurring ever more frequently, individuals and undertakings often turn to intellectual property law to protect their ideas and seek remedies where appropriate (e.g. the recent Apple v Samsung design dispute).

Recent developments in intellectual property are now a regular feature in popular media and a much-discussed topic amongst the general public. As such, the Utrecht Journal will be dedicating its 2016 Special Issue to ‘Intellectual Property in International and European Law’.

The Board of Editors invites submissions addressing legal issues relating to intellectual property law from an international or European law perspective. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• the influence of patenting on the competitive process;
• the use of IP holding companies to take advantage of favourable tax regimes;
• patent-trolls;
• copyright infringements;
• trademark protection;
• the ethics of IP (e.g. GMOs), etc.

All types of manuscripts, from socio-legal to legaltechnical to comparative will be considered. However, please note that any analysis solely limited to a national legal system will fall outside the scope of the Journal. An international or European legal dimension is imperative.

The Board of Editors will select articles based on quality of research and writing, diversity and relevance of topic. The novelty of the academic contribution is also an essential requirement.

Prospective articles should be submitted online via the Journal’s website
(www.utrechtjournal.org/about/submissions) and should conform to the Journal style guide.

Utrecht Journal has a word limit of 15,000 words including footnotes.

For further information please consult our website or email the Editor-in-Chief at utrechtjournal@urios.org.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 15 October 2015

Utrecht Journal is the student-led, peer-reviewed biannual law journal of Urios, the Utrecht Association for International and European Law. The Journal was founded in 1981 as Merkourios. In the years since, the Journal has expanded its readership and is now distributed all over the world through databases such as HeinOnline and the Directory of Open Access Journals.

Please have a look at this Call for Papers for the 3rd Annual TAU Workshop for Junior Scholars, that will take place in October 26-27 at Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law.

Dear readers,

A Conference on Urgency and Human Rights will take place 29 & 30 May 2015 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. This is the announcement:

Could the tool of interim measures be used to order states to halt cooperation with drone attack operations, protect persons against death threats, or ensure access to basic facilities for undocumented persons? In Europe the tool of interim measures is mostly used to halt expulsion and extradition. How to enhance the legitimacy and effectiveness of these measures? How to assess issues such as implementation of interim measures and political pressure to limit their use? And what if urgent litigation is not a feasible option? The conference on Urgency and Human Rights, taking place on the 29th and the 30th of May 2015, will deal with these and other pressing questions.

Among others, the conference will feature Dinah Shelton (the expert on remedies in international law and on regional human right protection), Sacha Prechal (EU judge), Philip Leach (director of EHRAC), Cees Flinterman (former member UN Human Rights Committee and CEDAW), Theo van Boven (former UN Rapporteur against Torture and Rapporteur on the Principles and Guidelines on the Right to Remedy and Reparation).

There will be debates with representatives of important civil society organisations such as the International Commission of Jurists, Redress, Open Society Justice Initiative (the lawyer in the extraordinary rendition case Al-Nashiri v. Poland before the European Court of Human Rights) and European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC); Brian Griffey of the OSCE and Professor Philip Leach of EHRAC will discuss urgent cases in the Ukraine.

The roundtables which are organized during the conference will discuss:

(1) New and traditional urgent situations warranting the use of provisional measures?

(2) Urgent complaints in contexts of armed conflict and counter-terrorism measures

(3) Urgent cases and challenges to the individual complaint systems

Conference fee: only €20 euro a day. For more information and registration see: Conference Urgency and Human Rights

The Kalliopi Koufa Foundation on the Promotion of International Law and Human Rights organizes the inaugural session of the Thessaloniki Summer Courses on International Law and Human Rights from 1 to 10 July 2015 in Thessaloniki, Greece, on the topic of “International Aspects and Issues of Energy Law”. The programme is open to advanced law students, researchers and practitioners.

The Faculty of this 10-day intensive course on international energy law is the following: Catherine Redgwell (Oxford), August Reinisch (Vienna), Andreas Ziegler (Lausanne), Andrea Bjorklund (McGill), Anastasia Strati (Brussels and MFA, Greece), Danae Azaria (University College London).

Seminars will be given by Emmanuel Karagiannis (King’s College), Angelos Syrigos (Panteion University, Athens) and Alexandra Sdoukou (Ministry of Reconstruction of Production, Greece).

The inaugural speech will be given by Professor emeritus Christos Rozakis (President of the Administrative Tribunal of the CoE).

The registration deadline has been extended until 15 May 2015.

For more information including applicable fees and the provisional programme, visit the webpage of the Foundation.

From the summer of 2015, Utrecht University will begin offering three summer school options:

International Human Rights Law: An Introduction (one week course)

International Law from a Gender Perspective (one week course)

Specialty Track: Human Rights and Gender (two week combined course)

Please click on the links above to find out more and to register!

Many thanks,

Otto

The Venice Academy of Human Rights will take place from 6-15 July 2015.

The theme of this year’s academy is ‘(Dis)Integration through Human Rights: Citizens, Courts, Communities’.

Online applications are accepted until 3 May 2015.
The Academy offers an “early bird” registration with a reduced participation fee until 15 March 2015.

Faculty of the Venice Academy 2015

Distinguished Opening Lecture
Albie Sachs, Former Judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa

General Course
Will Kymlicka, Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy, Queen’s University

Faculty
Armin v. Bogdandy, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg

Andreas Føllesdal, Professor of Political Philosophy at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights and Director of the Norwegian Centre of Excellence PluriCourts for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order, University of Oslo

Marc Weller, Professor of International Law and International Constitutional Studies and Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge

Marlene Wind, EURECO Professor and Director of the Centre for European Politics, University of Copenhagen

You can view the detailed programme here.

Key Facts
Participants: Academics, practitioners, PhD/JSD and master students
Type of courses: Lectures, seminars, workshops and discussion sessions
Number of hours: up to 35 hours of courses
Location: Monastery of San Nicolò, Venice – Lido, Italy
Fees: 500 EUR (early bird registration until 15 March), 600 EUR (16 March – 3 May 2015)

Venice Academy of Human Rights
The Venice Academy of Human Rights is an international programme of excellence for human rights education, research and debate. It forms part of the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC).
The Academy offers interdisciplinary thematic programmes open to academics, practitioners, doctoral and master students with an advanced knowledge of human rights. Participants attend morning lectures, participate in discussion sessions and workshops and can exchange views, ideas and arguments with leading international scholars and experts. This includes the opportunity for a number of participants to present and discuss their own “work in progress” such as drafts of articles, chapters of books or doctoral theses and receive comments from faculty members and peers.
At the end of the programme, participants receive a Certificate of Attendance issued by the Venice Academy of Human Rights.

The K.G. Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea has a PhD-position vacant for applicants who wish to conduct research in the field of “Compliance Mechanisms in the Law of the Sea”. Application deadline is 15 March 2015.

The call is published on www.jobbnorge.no, and www.uit.no/lawofthesea.

This conference will explore themes and perspectives that have emerged after and as a reaction to the increasing number of human rights critiques in the recent years. Some of these have been of such a fundamental nature that they have left not few researchers in the field with a nagging doubt about human rights and their status as an ideological project and a so-called ‘last utopia’. Still, human rights continue to play a significant role both in high-level politics and, even more importantly, in grassroots initiatives, becoming in fact the dominant vocabulary for expressing and challenging injustices. This two day event provides an opportunity to confront the challenges that result from the ambivalence of human rights.

For more information and practicalities, see this flyer.

Please click here for the programme of this year’s Xiamen Academy of International Law.