Forthcoming event on GAL in International Organizations in Geneva

A quick post to highlight the fact that this week (Friday and Saturday to be precise) a major GAL event will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, on Practical Problems of International Organizations: A Global Administrative Law Perspective on Public/Private Partnerships, Accountability, and Human Rights. The conference will feature Panels on the increasing use of public-private partnerships by international organizations; legal process and mandate issues; accountability and immunities; and human rights issues in field operations. There will also be a general round table discussion, involving the chief legal officers of a number of important organizations. A detailed overview and programme of the event is available here.

The conference is jointly organized and sponsored by the Department of Public International Law and International Organization (and in particular by Professor Laurence Boisson de Chazournes) at the University of Geneva Law School and NYU's Institute for International Law and Justice (where the GAL project, led by Professors Benedict Kingsbury and Richard Stewart, is based). The event is also sponsored by the Institute for Research on Public Administration of Rome (led by Professor Sabino Cassese), the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Special mention must also go to my friend and colleague Lorenzo Casini, who has written more emails in this regard than I even knew existed.

The purpose of the meeting is to raise, analyze, and discuss important operational issues that confront major international organizations (IOs) that may not as yet have been sufficiently addressed in systematic fashion. In order to do so, the conference will bring together leading experts – both practitioners and academics – in the field.

Unfortunately, the meeting is by invitation only. The various contributions will, however, be collected into a volume for publication after the conference; and I will post some reflections on the event here at some point early next week.