Dr. Specht participates in “New Challenges and the Concept of International Law“ – one of the preparatory meetings of the Global Policy Forum 2010, Yaroslavl, Russia

Harvard Law School’s Institute for Global Law and Policy has established itself as one of the organizing forums for thinking about international law which challenges the main stream’s preoccupations with the global system. Russia has found her voice internationally since the beginning of this century. With G 20 and, more importantly, BRIC, Russia has developed as one of the voices with distinct interests in the development of alternative frameworks for governance.

On the basis of introductory remarks by David Kennedy, Faculty Director of the Institute for Global Law and Policy, and Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Professor at Harvard Law School and former Minister for Strategic Development of President Lula’s Government of Brazil, issues were raised which will be present, in the form of theses at the meeting in Yaroslavl.

Participants in the meeting of 07 May 2010 at Harvard Law School were mostly concerned with the need for institutional pluralism and for experimentation with a multitude of institutional arrangements, supported by and part of newly oriented international institutions, comparable to the stabilizing structures established in the aftermath of the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference. While such new architecture of international institutions seems desirable to stabilize the global system, the hegemony on which the Bretton Woods System as well as all globally ordering mechanisms since its demise have been based – particularly the sclerotic regime of the neo-liberal Washington Consensus -- proved too rigid to fairly and justly promote the interests of a multitude through such global regimes.

Professor Iosip Diskin, member of the Russian Federation’s Public Chamber and co-chairman of the Council for National Strateg, along with Roberto Mangabeira Unger, former Brazilian Ministerfor Strategic Development and Professor of Law at Harvard University and also David Kennedy, Faculty Director of the Institute for Global Law and Policy moderated the meeting. Dr. Leopold Specht, managing partner of Specht Rechtsanwalt GmbH participated in his capacity as member of the Institute for Global Law and Policy of Harvard University and member of the Council for National Strategy. Dr. Alfred Gusenbauer, former Chancellor of Austria, William Fischer and Duncan Kennedy, Professors of Law at Harvard University Law School, Andrei Lisitsyn-Svetlanov, Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of State and Law, Mikhail Mizulin, First Deputy Director of the Higher School of Management of the Civil Service Academy and Mark Entin, Director of the European Educational Institute of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) of the Russian Foreign Ministry were the other participants in the meeting.

More information on the Global Forum objectives, history and upcoming meeting can be found at: http://www.gpf-yaroslavl.ru/en