Announcements: Launch of the Democratic Decay Resource; UN Audiovisual Library of International Law; CfP Art-Law Centre; CfS International Summer School on Human Rights Protection; CfP Rethinking Peace Mediation

1. Launch of the Democratic Decay Resource (DEM-DEC). A major new online resource for research on democratic decay has just been launched at www.democratic-decay.org. Created by Dr Tom Gerald Daly (Melbourne Law School) and supported by a range of leading public law and policy organisations, the Democratic Decay Resource (Dem-Dec) focuses on the global challenge of the incremental deterioration of democratic rule and is primarily pitched at public lawyers, i.e. those working on constitutional, international and transnational law.  The resource is aimed at providing key information in one place, to frame the research area, to address conceptual confusion, and to bring scholars together in a collaborative project to drive the field forward, in a context where a lot of scholars are talking in silos, or past one another, where the literature is rapidly expanding, and research events and projects are proliferating across the world. The Resource contains a Concept Index, Concept Map, list of Scholars, Bibliography, list of Events, and Links.

 

 

3. Call for Papers: Art-Law Centre. The Art-Law Centre has issued a call for papers for the Third All Art and Cultural Heritage Law Conference, which will take place at the University of Geneva on 10 November 2018. The theme is ‘Works of art qualified as “national treasures”: limits to private property and export controls’. For full details of the call, see here. 

4. Call for Speakers: International Summer School on Human Rights Protection under the ECHR (2019). The Chair for European Law, International Law and Public Law at the University of Leipzig is pleased to announce its first Summer School on European Human Rights Protection according to the ECHR and is looking for interested speakers. The official announcement with the exact dates, possible presentation topics as well as further information can be found under the following link. 

5. Call for Papers: Rethinking Peace Mediation. Durham University and the European University Viadrina are hosting a workshop on peace mediation in New York in November. They are inviting paper proposals on critical approaches to peace mediation. The aim of the workshop is to explore the effects and dilemmas of the professionalization of peace mediation. It will bring together practitioners and scholars to make sense of the evolution of multi-track peacemaking efforts. The overall objective is to challenge supposed common notions of peace mediation (e.g. consensus driven; focus on process design; respect for human rights and other normative parameters; principle of inclusivity and gender sensitivity).  In this context, the workshop probes the accuracy of what peace mediation ought to be and its real-life form.  By looking at the ‘why’, ‘what’, and ‘who’, the workshop seeks to build a picture of modern peace mediation while offering a critical reflection to new realities in the field. The aim is to publish suitable contributions as an edited collection with a prominent academic publisher. Papers from any disciplinary perspective (conflict resolution studies, law, political science, anthropology, etc.) are welcomed, and those with empirical, comparative or critical perspectives on peace mediation are highly encouraged. Please submit your abstract (300 words) by 27 July 2018 online. For questions please contact catherine.turner@durham.ac.uk and rethinkingpeacemediation {at} gmail(.)com. See the full text of the call here.