Preparations for the IACL’s Oslo Congress of June 2014 received a boost when the local organiser managed to secure separate funding to support participants from low and middle income countries.
This will greatly enhance the possibilities of making the Congress into an inclusive event that reflects the true diversity of the IACL and the wider community of constitutionalists of the world.
Further particulars are given elsewhere in this Newsletter. The IACL Executive Committee met in Florence (Italy) on 19 October 2013 and decided about a number of reform initiatives. Only two of them can be mentioned here:
- The IACL website will soon launch a blog section with regular contributions from people in different parts of the world and in three languages (English, French and Spanish).
- The election of IACL officials and a new Executive Committee during the Oslo Congress will be prepared through an open call for nominations, with 15 January 2014 as the deadline for nominations.
The Executive Committee also approved the creation of a new IACL research group, namely one on constitution-making and constitutional change. The group already has more than 20 members and its contact person is Professor Xenophon Contiades of Greece.
Finally, the Executive Committee also heard a report of the completion of our two-year project funded by the Ford Foundation on the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights. During its two years the project managed to organise conferences or training courses in all seven of its focus countries on four continents, plus a number of regional or global activities. Special thanks are due to all colleagues who participated in the execution of the project and contributed to its success. We will do our best to secure the sustainability of the networks created through the project.
I encourage you to register for the World Congress and look forward to meeting you in Oslo!