Laboratory for Advanced Research on the Global Economy

Rethinking Economic Policy for Social Justice: the radical potential of human rights
Speaker(s): Radhika Balakrishnan, Professor of Women's and Gender studies and Faculty Director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership, Rutgers University,
Diane Elson, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, James Heintz, Andrew Glyn Professor of Economics and Assistant Director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts
Chair:  Dr Polly Vizard, Associate Director and Associate Professorial Research Fellow, CASE
Date: Tuesday 28 February, 2017, 6.30 pm - 8.00pm
Venue: 32L.LG.18 (32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, Lower ground, room 18)

A social or a neoliberal Europe? The Greek experience
Speaker: George Katrougalos, Alternative Minister for European Affairs - Foreign Ministry, Greece and Professor of Public Law
Chair: Professor Kevin Featherstone, Eleftherios Venizelos Professor of Contemporary Greek Studies and Professor of European Politics
Discussant: Sarah Paterson, Assistant Professor of Law
Date: Monday 14 November 2016, 6.30 p.m. - 8.00 p.m.
Venue: Thai Theatre, New Academic Building (NAB) 

All debts are equal?  The law and ethics of sovereign debt      restructurings in Greece, Germany and Europe
Speaker: Dr Matthias Goldmann
Chair: Dr Margot Salomon
Date: Thursday 5 May 2016, 6.30 p.m. - 8.00 p.m.
Venue: 32L.B.07 (32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, Basement room 7)

Legitimacy and Compliance in the Global Anti-Corruption Business: Corporations as Enforcers of Transnational Criminal Law
Speaker: Dr Radha Ivory 
Chair: Dr Margot Salomon 
Date: Thursday 11 February 2016, 6.00 - 8.00 p.m.
Venue: 32L.B.07 (32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, Basement room 7)

On 26 November the Investment & Human Rights Project (IHRP) issued its recommendations to the government of Colombia to address investment policy in its National Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights. The recommendations are part of the IHRP’s work to support the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights State Duty to Protect (DtP) and improve guidance available to States on foreign direct investment and investment policy in the development of NAPs. See English summary or Spanish full version here.

Economics and Law in Conversation

This important new initiative at the Lab offers a series of interviews with economists engaging with human rights law and the objectives that animate it. The central aim of the Economics and Law in Conversation Series is to discover and deepen existing synergies between the two fields in the interest of social justice.

Interviews will be posted bi-monthly throughout the 2015-16 academic year. The Economics and Law in Conversation Series is moderated by
Dr Joshua Curtis, Visiting Fellow at the Lab.

Read the Concept Note.   

On 16 November, the Investment and Human Rights Project (IHRP) at the Centre’s Laboratory for Advanced Research on the Global Economy and the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights will host a joint session at the UN Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights. The session will address how States should implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPS) in the context of investment policy, drawing on the recent work by the IHRP in Colombia and Indonesia. The UN Panel discussion will bring together representatives from both countries to discuss the current plans for investment policy to be included in their respective National Action Plans to implement the UNGPs. Andrea Shemberg of the IHRP will be on the Panel along with a representative of Rio Tinto. Dante Pesce of the working group will moderate. The UN Annual Forum is a public meeting, but registration is required here

On 4 March 2015, Andrea Shemberg, co-lead of the Lab's Investment and Human Rights Project, was part of an invited panel of specialists brought together for a Chatham House seminar to discuss the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the US: TTIP: Shaping the Future of Investor−State Dispute Settlement? 

On 25-27 February 2015, Andrea Saldarriaga, co-lead of the Investment and Human Rights Project, participated in UNCTAD’s Expert Meeting on The Transformation of the International Investment Agreement Regime in Geneva, Switzerland. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the need for reform and identify strategies to help shape a sustainable-development friendly international investment framework.

On 28 October 2014 the Lab hosted the launch of Arab Development Denied: Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment. Dr Ali Kadri, member of the Lab's Sounding Board, was joined by Professor John Weeks (SOAS) and Dr Jason Hickel (LSE) for a discussion on Kadri's examination of how the Arab world has undergone a process of developmental descent, or ‘de-development’ over the past three decades. Event report by Anthem Press

On 17 October 2014 the Lab hosted a guest seminar, Balancing Human Rights and Investor Protection: Kyrgyzstan’s gold mining sector by Begaiym Esenkulova of the American University of Central Asia. Esenkulova presented her research on Kyrgyzstan’s investment policy regarding gold mining and the potential to reform it in order to align human rights and investor protection.

An audio recording of our panel discussion Human Rights, Globalization and How to Save the World, which took place on 1 May 2014 and featured contributions from Professor Julio Faundez, Dr Asunción Lera St Clair (pictured), Craig Mokhiber and Dr Margot Salomon, is online.

On 10 April 2014, the Lab's Investment & Human Rights Project launched the Investment & Human Rights Learning Hub where users can explore the connections between investment and human rights, find relevant resources in the toolboxes, watch learning videos and read expert articles on a range of investment and human rights themes.

Economists As Political Philosophers: The Neoclassical Vision And Free Trade. On 14 March 2014, in a Lab seminar, Dr Robert Lepenies from the European University Institute in Florence presented his work to responses from Dr Andrew Lang (LSE) and Professor Leif Wenar (KCL).

In December 2013, the Lab's Investment & Human Rights Project participated in the UN Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights. Andrea Saldarriaga (pictured) moderated a multi-stakeholder panel discussion on Investment and Human Rights and Andrea Shemberg was a panellist in the discussion on the application of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to state-owned financial  institutions.

At the UN Forum the Investment and Human Rights Project supported the launch of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' training on the UN Principles for Responsible Contracts integrating human rights risk management into State-Investor contract negotiations. The project team distributed the training materials on USB keys to participants from communities with low bandwidth internet access. Watch a short video introducing the training.

The Lab's first public event  Greed, Humanity and the Neoliberal Retreat in International Law took place on Thursday 31 October 2013. The event headlined Professor M. Sornarajah, the Lab's inaugural Visiting Professor.

Zeit Online: International creditors must respect human rights in Greece, including Germany. Interview with Dr Margot Salomon 20 July 2015

Open Global Rights: Corporate concern for human rights essential to tackle climate change by Asuncion Lera St. Clair, Senior Principal Scientist of the Climate Change Program at DNV GL Strategic Research and Innovation and member of the Lab's Sounding Board.

In her latest article Of Austerity, Human Rights and International Institutions, Dr Margot Salomon, Lab Director, offers a timely set of arguments as to what is required as matters of law and societal expectation when it comes to having international institutions respect socio-economic rights.

Open Global Rights: Human Rights - help or hindrance to combatting climate change? by Usha Natarajan, Assistant Professor in the Department of Law at the American University in Cairo, and member of the Lab's Sounding Board. 

Open Global Rights: One step forward, two back? Dalit women’s rights under economic globalisation  by Rachel Kurian, Assistant Professor in the International Institute of Social Studies of the Erasmus University and member of the Lab's Sounding Board. 

Open Global Rights: Where the Emperor can’t enter: rethinking the case for property and housing rights in China. Eva Pils is Associate Professor, Centre for Rights and Justice, Faculty of Law of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and member of the Lab Supper Club.

Open Global Rights: Independent and impartial? Re-thinking the adjudication of trade and investment disputes by Professor Krista Nadakavukaren Schefer, professor of international law at the University of Basel’s Faculty of Law and member of the Lab's Sounding Board. 

Open Global Rights: In the second Lab post on the Open Global Rights blog, researcher Louis Karaolis addresses the double European crisis of debt and asylum in A post-modern Greek tragedy - austerity and asylum in times of crisis.

Open Global Rights: The Lab is now a regular contributor to the Open Global Rights blog on Open Democracy. Open Global Rights is a multilingual, online forum for debating human rights worldwide. In the first blog from the Lab, Austerity, Human Rights and Europe’s Accountability Gap, Lab Director Dr Margot Salomon details how a range of actors responsible for austerity measures in Greece is at best ignoring and, at worst, violating socio-economic rights.

Lab Director, Dr Margot Salomon, was interviewed by Canada's foreign relations council as part of a series of interviews with Canadians who have made notable contributions to debates on global issues. In 'Where Human Rights Law Meets Globalisation'  Dr Salomon talks about how globalisation has shaped the concept of human rights, how international organisations and companies can be held accountable for human rights abuses, and how our current system actually undermines development.

Speak Out!

In this piece on Development under Uncertainty in the Arab World,
Dr Ali Kadri discusses obstacles to development in the Arab world with
emphasis on the baleful impact of conflicts. He tells us about the social
efficiency criterion, the legal corruption of institutional lenders, and how
private interests exhibit a necrotrophic relationship with the public sector or indigenous economy. The key question to investigate, it is said, is the relationship between wars and violent social order restructuring.

Read the first piece in the series of Speak Out!

Economics and Law in Conversation

This important new initiative at the Lab offers a series of interviews with economists engaging with human rights law and the objectives that animate it. The central aim of the Economics and Law in Conversation Series is to discover and deepen existing synergies between the two fields in the interest of social justice.

Interviews will be posted bi-monthly throughout the 2015-16 academic year. The Economics and Law in Conversation Series is moderated by
Dr Joshua Curtis, Visiting Fellow at the Lab.

Read the Concept Note.   

In the final reflection piece for our Series of Conversations, Dr Joshua Curtis describes some of the major themes that emerged from the interviews with economists. Within the context of a suggested merger of heterodox economics and human rights law, the piece stresses strong commonalities including a shared depth of ethical commitment and a common aversion to technocratic policy solutions. Dr Curtis was a Visiting Fellow at the Lab from 2015-2016 and moderated the Series. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool. Read the final reflection piece in our Series on Economics and Law in Conversation.

In our third Conversation, Ha-Joon Chang, Reader in Economics at Cambridge University, offers his thoughtful perspective on the relationship between economics, law and in particular human rights. He shows how an accurate picture of history, and a refusal to separate theoretically economics from politics, are both necessary to demystify the economic field and to think clearly about the laws and regulations that our present society requires. Read the third entry in our Series on
Economics and Law in Conversation

In our second Conversation, Margaret Somers, Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan, traverses the relationship between a new sociology of human rights, the nature of citizenship and the structure of our political economy. She relates the lessons of Polanyi's work regarding the dependence of markets on social relations to the widening cracks in our present economic paradigm to then point us towards change. Read the second entry in our Series on Economics and Law in Conversation

In our first Conversation, Radhika Balakrishnan, an economist and Professor in Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, shares her knowledge and experience of years of work at the intersection of human rights and economic policy. Read the first in our Series
on Economics and Law in Conversation

Lab 'Views

In this inaugural series of interviews the Lab  reaches out to Sounding Board members to find out how injustice functions in the areas in which they work and how the Lab's creative focus across disciplines can help inform their research.

LAB 'views: In the third in our series of interviews with Lab affiliates Dr Ali Kadri unpacks a complex and violent account of financialisation, militarisation and oil in the Middle East, and explains how human rights and sovereignty over natural resources of disempowered national working classes challenge economic orthodoxy. Dr Kadri is a member of the Lab Sounding Board. Read the interview (PDF)

Lab 'views: In the second of our series of interviews with Lab affiliates we asked Dr Rachel Kurian to explain the role of 'flexicurity' when it comes to protecting workers, and to consider why austerity has become the dominant response to economic crises in Europe.
Read the interview (PDF)

Lab 'views: In the first of a series of interviews with Lab affiliates, we asked Professor Olivier De Schutter, as he comes to the end of 6 years as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, what the key concerns are that undermine the exercise of the right to food, how change has taken place, and where we might next put our research energies. Read the Interview (PDF)