Background
Globalization and Law: Theory and Practice
Joint Seminar by the Warwick Law School and the Third World Network
Date : Friday and Saturday, 15th - 16th November 2002
Venue : Arts Centre Conference Room and Social Studies Building,
University of Warwick.
This two -day Workshop, jointly organised by the Warwick Law School and Third World Network, will bring together practitioners, campaigners and lobbyists from the south to share experiences from the ground with academics and students.
Speakers from the TWN will explore the issues relating to international trade and development, the global financial architecture and crises and their impact on national economies and local communities, the effects of the current patterns of mobilisation of financial and human capital on the environment, rural livelihoods, food security and the protection of human rights.
Participants will be encouraged to learn the realities of negotiating national and international frameworks of governance, and the advocacy and lobbying experiences of community activists and independent monitors of these global institutions and to suggest alternatives to the current model of international development, reforms and regulatory regimes that place people at the centre of national and international policymaking.
The Workshop addresses, in the main, the ways in which contemporary economic globalization affects the development of national and international law and legal institutions and national and international democratic processes. The Workshop program is designed to:
¬ Enhance our understanding of the forces (processes, mechanisms, institutions, networks) and agencies (IFIs, transantional corporations, and the institutions of transnational governance) of contemporary global capitalism, presented as `globalization' or as `New World Economic Order'
¬ Explore the modes in which agents and managers of contemporary globalization conceptualize the world's major problems and offer the `best' means to address these
¬ Examine relationship between international trade and `development,' governance' and `human rights'
¬ Develop profiles of the `winners' and `losers' in contemporary globalization scenario
¬ Grasp the role and potential of activist intervention at all levels (from the local to the global) and in all forms (advocacy, critique, protest) in framing the discourse of `costs' and `benefits' of contemporary globalization
¬ Enable articulations of `deglobalization' or `globalization from below.'
This Workshop is specially designed for students in both the Masters' Programmes at the School. You will find themes and issues explored in the Workshop useful for your current programme of study and research at Warwick. It will, we hope, also form the basis of future research agendum and activist engagement.
The programme is so designed as to provide opportunities for intense discussions, based on the presentations and materials from the Third World Network, which will be made available to participants as preparatory reading.
The Workshop replaces the traditional annual seminar at the Cumberland Lodge.
Third World Network
Formed in 1984 as an international network of groups and individuals involved in Third World development and human rights issues, TWN aims to bring about a greater articulation of people's needs and rights in national and international policymaking.
TWN has been actively engaged in attempts by developing countries and local communities to shape the discourse of national and international development to bring about a fairer, more equitable and more ecologically sustainable distribution of the world's scarce resources.
Its programme of work include fostering greater interaction and collaboration between citizens, epistemic communities, activists, and policymakers to enable a greater sharing of knowledge and experiences towards the goal of shaping a more holistic understanding of issues relating to trade, sustainable development, ecology and the protection of peoples' rights to life and livelihoods.
TWN members have actively participated in advocacy and lobbying at national and international levels and in local community mobilizing and global awareness raising. Among others, TWN regularly monitors and disseminates information on the developments at the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
, and the international financial institutions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
TWN participated as NGO monitors of United Nations processes, such as the negotiations leading up to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and the recently concluded World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD or Rio + 10) in Johannesburg in August this year. TWN is also currently involved in monitoring negotiations on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
TWN's international secretariat is based in Penang, Malaysia, with offices in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Geneva, Switzerland. Its African secretariat is based in Accra, Ghana and its Latin America secretariat is based in Montevideo, Uruguay. The network actively collaborates with a host of like-minded institutions and organisations, both in the south and north that share the vision of people-centred development.