Fiona Smith is Professor of International Economic Law at Warwick Law School and has a specialist interest in international agricultural trade. She is working on the impact of BREXIT on UK agricultural policy, specifically how the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) rules will affect the UK’s trade in food and agricultural policy after BREXIT.

Fiona was a member of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society’s Farmers Scientist Network expert group that produced the influential ‘The Implications of BREXIT for UK Agriculture’ (2016). Following the June 2016 Referendum, Fiona has given written evidence to the Welsh Assembly, and the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly on BREXIT and agriculture. Find out more. In December 2016, she also gave oral evidence to the House of Commons’ International Trade Committee.

Fiona was also interviewed by Jonty Bloom for the Radio 4 programme, ‘In Business: BREXIT and the Future of British Farming.’

Sharifah Sekalala has written a new blog entry for the Health and Human Rights Journal.

Will Africa's New Scorecard Promote Universal Health Coverage?

Read the full blog.

Dr Ben Farrand spoke at an interdisciplinary event, ‘99 Days: UK-EU Relations under Theresa May’s Government’ on Wednesday, 19 October 2016 at the University of Warwick. The format is a series of talks about UK-EU relations post-Brexit, and it’s being organised by the Warwick Department of Economics and the Warwick Policy Lab. For further details, please visit: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/events/2016/10/open_lecture_99_days_uk_eu_relations_under_theresa_mays_government/

Tuesday, 1 November 2016

5.30pm - 7pm

R.0.0.3, Ramphal Building, Library Road, University of Warwick

(followed by a drinks reception at the Ramphal Foyer)

Following the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, questions remain as to what shape its trade and investment relationship with the EU and the rest of the world will look like. Does a brave new world of trade and investment deals beckon? Or will Britain be constrained by its lack of negotiating capacity? What might the broader (e.g. social and environmental) impact of Britain’s trade policy decision-making be? Join our experts to find out more.

Speakers:

• Dr James Harrison, Associate Professor, Warwick Law School
• Dr Gabriel Siles-Brugge, Associate Professor, Department of Politics and InternationalStudies, Warwick
• Markus Wagner, Associate Professor, Warwick Law School

Chair: Professor Fiona Smith, Warwick Law School

This event is free of charge but please register your interest here.

Directions on how to get to Warwick University can be found here. Interactive and downloadable maps of campus can also be found here.

For further details, please contact: globe.events@warwick.ac.uk

This event is organised by the GLOBE Centre in conjunction with the Centre for Globalisation and Regioanlisation (CSGR) and the Global Governance Global Research Priority.

Click here http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/research/centres/globe/events/brexit/

The recent wave of land deals for agribusiness investments has highlighted the widespread demand for greater accountability in the governance of land and investment. Legal frameworks influence opportunities for accountability, and recourse to law has featured prominently in grassroots responses to the land deals. Drawing on comparative socio-legal research in Cameroon, Ghana and Senegal, the report explores how the law enables, or constrains, accountability in investment processes. The report develops a conceptual framework for understanding accountability; assesses how national law in the three countries influences opportunities for accountability; and provides pointers for research and action.

The report is available (free) from the International Institute for Environment and Development, click here.

Sharif Sekalala is presenting a paper at a workshop on 'The emerging norm of global representation in global health' as part of 'Brown University's international Advanced Research Institute' which is focusing on global health in Madrid from the 10th - 16th of January 2016. Click here to read on.

Areas being discussed are politics of health care provision in the era of globalization. What are the bases of health policymaking in different countries and contexts? How does health care provision play out on the ground in particular places? Which public, private, and civil society organizations are involved and to what effect? What roles do international organizations and agencies play in health care funding, provision, and agenda-setting? Where do scientists, and scientific agencies, fit in? And how do the norms governing health care provision evolve over space and time?

The Centre for the Law, Governance and Regulation of the Global Economy (GLOBE) welcomes its first Visiting Research Fellow, Dr Lorenzo Cotula who will be working with the Centre in academic year 2015 -16.

Dr Cotula is a principal researcher in law and sustainable development at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), where he leads the Legal Tools Team.

Lorenzo leads research, capacity and policy work on issues at the interface between law and international development, with a focus on the law governing natural resource rights and investments in low and middle-income countries. This includes work on international investment law, human rights, land rights and legal issues related to ‘land grabbing’, as well as the political economy of natural resource investments. Lorenzo also leads IIED’s work on ‘Legal Tools for Citizen Empowerment’, an initiative to strengthen local rights and voices within natural resource investments in low and middle-income countries.

Before joining IIED in 2002, Lorenzo worked on assignments with the Legal Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He holds academic qualifications in law, development studies and sustainable business from the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, the London School of Economics, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge.

Recent publications include Foreign Investment, Law and Sustainable Development: A Handbook on Agriculture and Extractive Industries; The Great African Land Grab? Agricultural Investments and the Global Food System; Human Rights, Natural Resource and Investment Law in a Globalised World: Shades of Grey in the Shadow of the Law; Investment Contracts and Sustainable Development: How to Make Contracts for Fairer and More sustainable Investments; and a wide range of research reports, journal articles and book chapters.

Lorenzo has previously collaborated with other GLOBE Centre researchers, including contributions to the Network on International Law, Natural Resources and Sustainable Development (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/research/centres/ilnrsd/ ) , and will be working with GLOBE to organise a workshop on international investment law under the upcoming International Law in Context Workshop Series.

The Annual Research Report showcases the varity and excellence of the law school's research activities, and the strength of the School as a research community.

Please see below for the report

Warwick Law school Annual Research Report 2015

Dr Celine Tan and Prof John McEldowney have been successful in their application to the SLSA Annual Seminar Competition for part funding of the proposed International Economic Law in Context Workshop Series. The series is planned to start in the 2015-2016 academic year.

In the UK Research Excellence Framework results (announced 18 December 2014), Warwick Law School was assessed as coming 6th out of 67 Law Departments in terms of its Research Environment, 7th in terms of the Quality of its Research and 10th overall.

Full details can be found on the REF website.

Few concerns preoccupy contemporary progressive thought as much as the issue of how to achieve a sustainable human society. The problems impeding this goal include those of how to arrest induced global environmental change (GEC), persistent disagreements about the contribution of economic activities to GEC and further differences in views on how these activities can be reformed in order to reduce the rate of change and thus to mitigate threats to much life on Earth.

Julio Faundez is to present his lecture, "Bringing About Legal and Political Change for Good Governance: Critical Perspectives on Douglass North and New Institutional Economics" on Friday 26 September at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC.