Viterbo V GAL Seminar: call for papers released

The fifth installment of the extremely successful annual Global Administrative Law Seminars in Viterbo, Italy will held from 12-13 June 2009, and will discuss the issue of Legality Review in the Global Administrative Space. It will be hosted by Professors Stefano Battini, Giulio Vesperini and Edoardo Chiti (IRPA), together with an organizational team led by Martina Conticelli, at the University La Tuscia, Viterbo. A more detailed call for papers and provisional programme have just been released:

In the last fifteen years, the number of mechanisms and proceedings for review of the legality of decisions and norms adopted by global administrative bodies has grown rapidly. Review is exercised by international courts and arbitral tribunals and also by domestic courts. Review may also be exercised by reviewing entities that are a part of the global body making the decision reviewed. Further, other global administrative bodies or domestic administrative authorities may engage in legality review in the course of deciding whether to follow a decision or norm adopted by a global administrative body. Review can extend to both the substantive and procedural elements.

What is the current state of development of such reviewing practices and norms? Do such mechanisms and proceedings result in a coherent and coordinated system of review of global administrations’ action? Or do they generate a fragmented and diverse patchwork, composed of different approaches and standards? To what extent do review procedures depart from the traditional international modes of dispute resolution, basically centred on negotiation? And in what way does their gradual emergence of various forms of review affect the development of global administrative law?

The 5th Viterbo Gal Conference aims at discussing research and studies which, though focussing on specific issues, reviewing bodies or sectors, contribute to academic reflection on the general subject of review of global administrative decisions and the development of global administrative law.

Papers should deal with questions such as, for example, the following. What bodies exercise review? Who has access to such review? How are review mechanisms and proceedings shaped? Which global administrative decisions and measures can be held amenable to review? On which grounds? And what are the effects of the review decision? What remedies and incentives do various reviewing bodies provide? What is the relationship between non judicial and judicial review mechanisms and proceedings? And how do they interact with the review mechanisms and proceedings available at the domestic level?

These events bring together some of the most prominent administrative law scholars in Italy (led by Professor, and Constitutional Court Judge, Sabino Cassese), and a number of others from throughout Europe and the US. I have also always enjoyed the particular format that discussions take, in which papers are presented not by their authors but rather by one discussant per panel, and the authors then have some five minutes to respond. This allows for plenty of time for open discussion, which is, after all, the main benefit of conferences in the first place. Perhaps most important, however, is the focus given to encouraging the contributions of young and upcoming scholars to the emerging field of global administrative law. All of these elements and others combine to make these events, without fail, extremely worthwhile experiences.