Law of the Future Conference 2009 - a successful event
On 8 and 9 October of 2009 the third conference in the succesful Law of the Future series was organised by HiiL at the Peace Palace in The Hague. This year, the main theme explored was “Globalisation, the Nation-State and Private Actors: Rethinking Public-Private Cooperation in Shaping Law and Governance.”
This theme pertained to the involvement of private actors in the areas of public policy and the need to evaluate and redefine cooperation between public and private actors in this regard. The Conference gathered an international group of the worlds' pre-eminent scholars and highly qualified practitioners with the aim to address a number of current and relevant trends such as private self-regulation, regulation of financial markets, corporate social responsibility, and public-private partnerships. The Conference proceedings were based on the interactive expert debate and combined plenary sessions, workshops, and discussion groups with the objective to gain understanding, formulate policy recommendations, and stipulate areas of further research. Once again, the quality of discussions and the HiiL role in bringing together experts from different backgrounds and disciplines were praised by the participants to the Law of the Future Conference.
The Conference was opened by HiiL Director Sam Muller. Subsequently, the keynote speeches were held by Gunther Teubner of the University of Frankfurt who spoke on constitutionalising of private self-regulation through the 
corporate codes of multinationals and Peter Wakkie of Ahold N.V. who focused on public-private cooperation from the perspective of the corporate sector.
The Plenary Session continued with four thought-provoking speeches which served as introductions to the four central themes of the Conference:
• Private Actors and Self-Regulation – by Fabrizio Cafaggi of the European University Institute
• Regulation of Financial Markets and Institutions – by Colin Mayer of the University of Oxford
• Corporate Social Responsibility and Enforcement – by Herman Mulder, former Director General of the ABN Amro Bank and independent advisor to numerous high-level bodies in the CSR area
• Realising the Millennium Development Goals through PPPs – by Chris Bovis of the University of Hull
These themes were subsequently addressed in workshop sessions which included presentations by academics and practitioners, break-out discussions groups, debate, and the formulation of workshop conclusions, which included policy recommendations and areas of further research. The workshop findings were brought together in the final plenary session by the Workshop Chairs: Colin Scott of University College Dublin, Dirk Schoenmaker of the Duisenberg School of Finance, Menno Kamminga of Maastricht University and Surya Subedi of the University of Leeds. The plenary session was further complemented by general commentaries of Richard Macrory of University College London, and Jan Eijsbouts, former General Counsel of Akzo Nobel N.V. and legal advisor on corporate governance, CSR and conflict management. The session concluded with a lively, high-level panel discussion, moderated by Hermione Gee of Radio Netherlands Worldwide.
As David Raič, Deputy Director of HiiL, pointed out in his closing remarks, “the questions raised in the context of all four themes pointed to the fact that there is a serious lack of knowledge regarding the effects and the required type of regulation in all these four areas and that the next step is for academics, policy-makers and the corporate sector to jointly explore innovative solutions to address this deficit.” It is with a view to this task that this Conference also marked the launch of the Hague Public-Private Governance Network – a network of experts from academia, practice, and the corporate sector who share a keen professional interest in the involvement of private actors in law and governance in today’s globalised world.
The Final Conference Report will be available in the end of November.
An edited volume containing the papers presented during the Conference is planned to appear in the second half of 2010.
See the documents below for more information.
- Conference Programme
- Conference Proceedings
- Presentation outlines and summaries
