Courses - Granada, Spain
Week 1
(June 3-6, 2013)
European Financial Law (1 credit)
Instructor: Luis Hinojosa, Universidad de Granada
This course will introduce the participant to the regulatory framework of the European Union financial markets and will focus on the regulation of free movement of capitals and payments between Member States and between Member States and third countries. Among the specific problems to be treated we will mention:
- The European Regulation against money laundering and financial crime.
- Bilateral investment and trade agreements with third countries.
- Sovereign Wealth Funds.
- The study of a selection of cases of the European Court of Justice.
The course will also deal with the European banking system, and the directives regulating the provision of credit services and the capital adequacy of investment firms and credit institutions.
Week 2
(June 10-13, 2013)
Corporate Governance and Harmonization in Times of Financial Crisis (1 Credit)
Instructor: Francisco Reyes, Louisiana State University
This course will explore some of the challenges that Company Law legislators and policy makers have faced during the last several years in order to confront the world financial crisis. It will explore topics such as executive compensation, risk management, board practices and the exercise of shareholder rights. The OECD principles of Corporate Governance will also be reviewed in order to analyze if they are appropriate in light of the present circumstances.
Additionally, some of the latest initiatives for the harmonization of commercial laws at the UNCITRAL level will also be covered during this course.
Week 3
(June 17-20, 2013)
Global Financial Turmoil and the Euro Area Crisis (1 credit)
Instructor: Luis Hinojosa, Universidad de Granada
The course is intended to provide the participants with the knowledge to enable them to understand the economic and legal design of the European Economic and Monetary Union and the reasons why this group of developed countries decided to create a common currency renouncing their national ones. The original architecture of this economic and monetary union has been challenged by a long, deep financial crisis that began as a financial industry crisis and has degenerated in a public debt crisis in the Eurozone.
In this context, this course will explore the causes of the financial crisis, and why letting the euro fail is not a viable alternative for EU Member States. The main part of the course will deal with the different legal measures taken by the European Union to tackle the crisis:
a) Stronger coordination of economic and budgetary policies.
b) Financial assistance mechanisms.
c) Strengthened financial supervision.
d) The reforms of the European constituent treaties.
The summer course will end with a prospective study of the legal projects that could bring about a different solution to the European debt crisis fostering federal integration in the Eurozone. Among the subjects to be studied: the issuance of European Stability Bonds ('Eurobonds'), the establishment of a tax on financial transactions, and the establishment of a Eurozone budget.
Week 4
(June 24-27, 2013)
The World Bank and Human Rights (1 credit)
Instructor: Björn Arp, Alcalá University School of Law, Madrid, Spain
The World Bank Group has been criticized as a financial power center that makes economic decisions without regard to the impact on the daily life of thousands of people directly affected by the Bank's projects. On the one hand, in implementing its mandate, the World Bank pursues the economic development of its Member States. On the other hand, this same activity may negatively affect people who, for instance, must abandon their homes to make space for the construction of a hydroelectric dam, road, or harbor; those who suffer under high pollution levels caused by a mine; or those for whom open pit mining threatens their ancestral way of life. Aware of the tension between economic development and the protection of human rights and the environment, the World Bank has begun to introduce social and environmental considerations when implementing its projects.
This course aims to explore the role that human rights and environmental protection play in the World Bank's practice, and how the Bank implements these rights. We will start the analysis with the World Bank's Articles of Agreement; explore the Bank's internal practice in the field of human rights and the environment; and understand the control mechanisms set up within the Bank to hear cases brought by persons affected by World Bank projects. Mechanisms include the World Bank's Inspection Panel and the IFC's and MIGA's Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman.
We will finish the course with the simulation of a case brought before one of these control mechanisms. The case will give us the opportunity to discuss some of the practical challenges the World Bank faces when observing universal human rights and environmental protection.
HONORARY GUEST SPEAKER:
Judge Patrick Robinson, Former President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, 2008-2011.
Judge Robinson will lecture on Fairness and Efficiency in the Proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY or the Tribunal).
The ICTY was established in 1993 by the Security Council to try persons for the most serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991. It was the first international criminal tribunal to be established after the Nuremburg and Tokyo Tribunals that were set up in the wake of the atrocities of the Second World War. The eyes of the international community were fixed on the Tribunal to see how it would discharge its functions. The complaint most frequently made was that the Tribunal's proceedings were too lengthy - many trials lasted several years. When Slobodan Milošević died shortly before he was scheduled to complete the presentation of his defence, his trial had lasted four years.
Against the background of that criticism, the Tribunal devoted much time and energy devising measures that would expedite the trial process; however, in doing so it had to ensure that the measures did not prejudice the interests of the accused. No issue occupied as much time in the Tribunal's work as the question of expeditious but fair trials.
The course will examine:
i. the Tribunal's legal system - whether it is common law adversarial or civil law inquisitorial;
ii. the interaction between those systems in the formulation of procedures to expedite the trial process;
iii. the many measures adopted by way of amendments to the Rules of Procedure and Evidence to expedite the trial process;
iv. the impact of the Security Council's Completion Strategy on the expeditiousness and fairness of trials; and
v. the legacy of the Tribunal in establishing a template for other tribunals to achieve expeditious but fair trials in the discharge of their functions.
