7 Mar 2015

Future Lawyers’ Training Programme

Why take this programme

The Future Lawyers’ Training Programme introduces law students to international development.

It covers the changes in global poverty and development financing, challenges such as corruption, conflict and climate change, approaches to human rights and responsible business, and what’s next on the horizon.

You will have a chance to think about how you can contribute to international development efforts throughout your legal careers, and how the law can be used to further development efforts.

Who for and who with

The programme is aimed at law students with a strong interest in the role the law plays in the development agenda and the critical skills to apply your legal knowledge to a new area.

Seminars and workshops are delivered by leading academics, development professionals and practising lawyers to help participants understand how the law can secure, or be a barrier to, sustainable development.

What you gain

  • An overview of the big issues in international development, successes and challenges in using the law, and the complexities involved in trying to make effective interventions
  • Practical skills in thinking through how you would tackle real life cases
  • Contacts with people working in this field which you can build on to develop your own career opportunities

How you learn

Each topic will be introduced with a presentation and time for questions and discussions.  You will have the opportunity to explore the issues and how they play out in practice, through participatory group work and interactive exercises.

We will upload background information, course materials and further resources to a shared secure site so that you can build on your learning.

Where

BPP Law School, London Holborn

When

  • Module One Saturday 7 March (full day) and Sunday 8 March (half day)
  • Module Two Saturday 28 March (full day) and Sunday 29 March (half day)

Browse the topics covered at the last years’ programme below:

Module One: Introduction to international development

Saturday 7 March 2015

Global poverty and inequality

Welcome and introduction

The past

  • What is ‘development’? What does it seek to achieve? How do we measure development and growth?
  • What is poverty? How have poverty trends changed over time?
  • The role of aid and reverse finance flows: debt, trade, foreign investment
  • The Millennium Development Goals

Dr Sandra Sequeira, LSE

Effective development: case study

  • Development effectiveness principles
  • Poverty reduction strategies in the context of the changing balance of development finance actors and instruments
  • New resource flows in Africa, focusing on Uganda’s mineral resources and Chinese investment
  • Supporting effective states and inclusive development

Dr Sam Hickey, University of Manchester

The present

  • What are the key issues and debates in development today?
  • Where are the global poor and where will they be by 2030?
  • New forms of financing from the global south, middle income countries, philanthropy, remittances, crowdfunding
  • Should aid funds be used for welfare, investment or global public goods?

Dr Sandra Sequeira, LSE

The future: group work

 

Sunday 8 March 2015

Global changes and challenges 1

Corruption, natural resources and governance

  • The ‘natural resource curse’: how timber, diamonds and oil can incentivise corruption
  • Adverse impacts on human rights and the environment in resource-abundant economies
  • Legal mechanisms to combat corruption, hold elites to account and stop illegal extraction and trade in natural resources

Reiner Tegtmeyer, Global Witness

Empowering women and safeguarding children

  • Mainstreaming gender in international development programming to eradicate poverty
  • Gender-based violence and sexual violence
    Safeguarding children in humanitarian settings
  • Remedies and policies under domestic and international humanitarian law

Aneeta Williams, Bridging Worlds Consulting

Module Two: Rights, rule of law and role of lawyers

Saturday 28 March 2015

Key actors and approaches

  • Conflict, fragile states and the rule of law
  • Building the rule of law in post-conflict and fragile states
  • Legal pluralism and the interplay between the systems
  • The importance of including the rule of law and access of justice in the new Sustainable Development Goals

Naina Patel, Bingham Centre

Business and human rights

  • Why business and human rights?
  • The obstacles to corporate accountability for human rights abuses
  • The “protect, respect and remedy” framework and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs)
  • The UNGPs: challenges and opportunities for lawyers
  • Case study on human rights issues in the mining sector in Latin America

Andrea Saldarriaga, Investment and Human Rights Project Lead, LSE

The rights based approach and civil society participation

  • The human rights based approach to tackling global poverty and inequality
  • How the international human rights framework evolved and how it operates in practice
  • The strengths and weaknesses of the rights based approach to development
  • How do rights based and participatory approaches relate to the Millennium Development Goals and the post-2015 development agenda?

Dr Gerard Clarke, University of Swansea

Does the rights based approach add value? Group work

 

Sunday 29 March 2015

Global changes and challenges 2

Climate change and international environmental law

  • The disproportionate effect of climate change on developing countries
  • Addressing climate change related impacts: adaptation and mitigation
  • Climate finance
  • The challenges of agreeing a common framework for action
  • The prospects for agreement and the risks of inaction

Farooq Ullah, Stakeholder Forum

Land, food and water rights

  • The increase in large scale land grabs
  • The global crisis of rising prices and food insecurity
  • How lawyers can help protect land rights and access to land

Joss Saunders, Oxfam

Speakers

Sandra Sequeira - London School of Economics

Sandra Sequeira is an Assistant Professor in Development Economics at the Department of international Development in the London School of Economics. Her research focuses on applied microeconomics, infrastructure and growth, private sector development, consumer prosocial behaviour and the economic costs of bureaucratic corruption. Sandra has conducted fieldwork in Zambia, Mozambique, Peru, India and Ghana, and has worked with the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and the Governments of Mozambique and South Africa.

Sam Hickey - University of Manchester - World Poverty Institute

Sam Hickey is Professor of Politics and Development at the University of Manchester, and Associate Director of the Brooks World Poverty Institute. He is also joint Research Director of the DFID-funded Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre. His main research interests are in the politics of development, including issues of poverty reduction, social protection, NGOs, citizenship and rights-based approaches to development.

Farooq Ullah - Stakeholder Forum

Farooq Ullah is the Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum (SF); an international NGO advancing sustainable development through good governance and participatory decision-making at all levels. Farooq is the Co-Chair of the UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development (UKSSD) initiative and the Co-Chair of the Sustainable Finance Advocates Network (SFAN).

Farooq also hold several non-executive positions. He is the Chair of Future Earth’s Engagement Committee, a Specialist Advisor to UK Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), an Associate of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), an Associated Partner of the European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). Farooq holds a BComm in Management Science from the University of Alberta (UofA) and an MSc in Public Policy from the London School of Economics (LSE).

Reiner Tegtmeyer - Global Witness

Reiner Tegtmeyer is a researcher and expert in forestry policies, forest management operations and Independent Forest Monitoring with London-based NGO Global Witness. He is conducting investigations into, and advocates against human rights abuses, conflicts and corruption linked to logging operations and forest conversions in major producer countries in Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America. He led Global Witness’ defining work in the development and implementation of Independent Forest Monitoring, a civil society tool to check and improve governance in the forest sector and to secure the rights of forest communities and indigenous peoples affected by logging operations.

Aneeta Williams - Tearfund

Aneeta Williams is a qualified barrister (Middle Temple) and practised civil and commercial law for 10 years in South-East Asia, including supporting women and children through various NGOs. For the last seven years, she was the global Advisor / Knowledge Manager on gender, children and vulnerable adults with international NGO Tearfund, and she has recently joined Plan International as Humanitarian Policy Manager. Last year she was deployed to the borders of Syria as one of 73 multi-disciplinary experts under the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative.

Naina Patel - Blackstone Chambers,

Naina Patel is a barrister with Blackstone Chambers, specialising in public law and human rights, commercial and employment law. Naina spent a year in Afghanistan as the UK government’s Senior Justice Adviser to the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Helmand. Naina joined the Bingham Centre as a Fellow in 2011 and has worked on a variety of overseas projects that have included producing constitutional options for Libya, improving freedom of expression in Bahrain and increasing constitutional awareness in Myanmar.

Andrea Saldarriaga - ESCP Business School Europe

Andrea Saldarriaga is a civil law and international lawyer with extensive experience in investment law, international arbitration and human rights. As an associate with various law firms including Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Andrea spent several years working closely with corporations in laying out their business strategies, structuring and overseeing their complex transactions and defending their interests in commercial and investment arbitrations.

She also participated in pro bono cases dealing with human rights and was among the experts advising UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, John Ruggie, on investment issues and responsible contracting. She teaches Business and Human Rights at ESSEC Business School Paris and ESCP Business School Europe.

Dr Gerard Clarke - Swansea University

Dr Gerard Clarke is an Associate Professor in Politics and International Development in the Department of Political and Cultural Studies at Swansea University, and teaches a course on rights-based approaches to development on the Development and Human Rights MA. He has undertaken consultancy assignments for the Department for International Development, the World Bank, the National Audit Office and NGOs in the UK, the US and South-East Asia. His research is on human rights in South-East Asia with a particular focus on the Philippines.

Joss Saunders - Oxfam

Joss Saunders has been Oxfam’s General Counsel since 1998. Before this he worked as a lawyer in the City of London and Paris, and taught at university in Poland and a government high school in Uganda. Joss is also Company Secretary of Oxfam.

BPP University Law School, 68-70 Red Lion St, London, WC1R 4NY