2020 Allard Prize Ceremony
Join us for the 2020 Allard Prize Ceremony, the first virtual ceremony in the Prize’s history. Register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/2020-allard-prize-ceremony-tickets-118194048581
Allard Prize Photography Competition Deadline
The Allard Prize enthusiastically invites photographers from around the globe to submit entries for the Allard Prize Photography Competition, reflecting themes of courage and leadership in combating corruption, especially through promoting transparency, accountability and the Rule of Law, and promoting human rights and/or anti-corruption generally. The Allard Prize particularly welcomes images that speak to corruption and human rights in the developed world. Each winning entry will receive CAD $1,000 and will be featured on the Allard Prize website. Submit your photographs here.
Rule of Law Reform and the Rise of Rule by Fear in China
Allard Hall, Room 122 12:30-2:00PM Light lunch will be served. Please RSVP to [email protected] For a long time, the revival of law and legal institutions in China was expected to enable transition to a more open, fair and rights-respecting system; but recent years have called the paradigmatic belief in China’s liberal transition into question. In this talk I argue that the use of fear as a spectre and as a tool is central to the power-centred, anti-liberal and anti-rationalist re-conception of law in the Xi Jinping era, and discuss the new challenges this poses to a global community more widely struggling with democratic-liberal decline and authoritarian resurgence. Eva Pils is Reader in Transnational Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law at King’s College London, where she teaches human rights, public law, and law and society in China. She studied law, philosophy and sinology in Heidelberg, London and Beijing and holds a PhD in law from University College London. Her scholarship focuses on human rights, authoritarianism, and law in China. She has written on these topics in both academic publications and the popular press. She is author of China’s human rights lawyers: advocacy and resistance (Routledge, 2014) and of Human rights in China: a social practice in the shadows of authoritarianism (Polity, forthcoming, 2017). Before joining King’s, Eva was an associate professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law. She is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the US-Asia Law Institute of New York University Law School, an external member of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Centre for Social Innovation Studies, an external fellow of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and a legal action committee member of the Global Legal Action Network. In April 2017, she was a Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.
Allard Prize Award Ceremony
The 2017 Allard Prize for International Integrity will be awarded at a ceremony to be held in Vancouver, Canada on September 28th, 2017. The $100,000 CAD Prize was established in 2012 and is one of the largest anti-corruption prizes in the world. The finalists for this year’s prize are Azza Soliman (Egypt), Khadija Ismayilova (Azerbaijan), and Car Wash Task Force (Brazil). The keynote speaker at this year’s ceremony will be internationally renowned journalist Glenn Greenwald. This year’s award ceremony is presented by: ABOUT THE FINALISTS: Azza Soliman – A renowned women’s rights lawyer, Azza Soliman is the co-founder of the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA). She has dedicated her life to fighting corruption and injustice faced by Egyptian women in both the private sphere and the judicial system. She started her activism in 1995 when she was arrested after exposing the torture imposed on female members of the Islamic Group. Soliman has worked to support women’s access to justice by using progressive interpretations of religion to influence legislation and combat the monopoly and corruption of religious institutions. In 2015, Soliman was unjustly charged with unauthorized protest and public order violations after testifying against a policeman who she witnessed killing a female human rights defender during a protest. In response, she founded the “Protecting Witnesses and Whistleblowers Coalition” to help enhance the Rule of Law. Currently, the Egyptian government has curtailed Soliman’s freedom by freezing her law firm’s and her own private assets and banning her from traveling outside Egypt. Khadija Ismayilova — As an investigative journalist in Azerbaijan, Khadija Ismayilova writes about high-level corruption and misuse of power in Azerbaijan for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Radio Free Europe’s Azerbaijani service. In 2010, Ismayilova revealed the corruption of Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, reporting that the President’s wife and children owned real estate in the United Arab Emirates worth USD $44 million. In 2013, Ismayilova received private video footage of herself in her home from an anonymous source, with a note warning her to behave. She was arrested in 2014 and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison on charges that many saw as retaliation for her reports. In 2016, the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan released Ismayilova on probation but forbade her to travel abroad for five years without official permission. Car Wash Task Force (Força Tarefa da Lava Jato) – This Brazilian anti-corruption prosecution task force has worked to prosecute some of the most powerful Brazilian economic and political elites. “Operation Car Wash” began as a local money laundering investigation and grew into the largest probe to date uncovering cases of state capture and grand corruption in Brazil. Its investigations have resulted in over 280 persons charged, 157 convictions, 1,563 years of cumulative jail time and restitution agreements of over US$3 billion. The Task Force’s work has led to the most significant anti-corruption bill in Brazil’s history, supported by over 2 million Brazilian citizens, and underscores the message that everyone is equal under the law and even the most powerful leaders will be held accountable. ABOUT THE KEYNOTE SPEAKER: The keynote speaker will be American journalist and author Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story of U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden to the world and co-founded the award-winning news outlet, The Intercept. The Intercept covers national security, politics, criminal justice and more, and gives its journalists the editorial freedom and legal support they need to pursue investigations that expose corruption and injustice.
What can Quebec’s anti-corruption inquiry teach BC?
Join us to hear from the lead lawyer on Quebec’s famous Charbonneau Commission as she shares her lessons for BC coming from that Inquiry’s high-profile investigation of politicians, lobbyists and corruption. Tuesday, March 21, 2017 at 9:30am PDT Allard Hall, 1822 East Mall in Vancouver, BC
Dr. Khin Zaw Win on Human Rights and Corruption in Myanmar
Dr. Khin Zaw Win is Director of Tampadipa Institute, Yangon, Myanmar. A capacity-building institution. Dr. Khin Zaw Win once worked with the ministries of health in Myanmar and Malaysia, and with UNICEF in Yangon, Myanmar. He was imprisoned in July 1994 by the military regime for peacefully criticising it. Amnesty International considered him a prisoner of conscience, and his case was one of only two in which UNESCO issued a public appeal for a political prisoner. Dr. Khin Zaw Win was one of more than 200 political prisoners released from jail in Myanmar on July 6th, 2005. Since then, Khin Zaw Win is active in policy advocacy and capacity building concerning communal issues, nationalism and international relations as the Director of the Tampadipa Institute, and as a Senior Research Fellow at the Myanmar Institute for Strategic and International Studies. February 14, 2017 4:00pm at Allard Hall (335)
Corruption and Anti-corruption in China: An Economic Perspective
At the end of 2012, the Chinese Communist Party launched a high-profile and far-reaching campaign against corruption. The number of high- and lower-ranking government officials that have been disciplined, charged, and convicted is historically unprecedented. But how are scholars to evaluate the status quo of corruption in China? What is the relationship between corruption and economic efficiency? How should we assess the effectiveness of China’s anti-corruption policy? To complement the views of political scientists and legal scholars, Professor Huihua Nie from Renmin University of China will offer his insights on these questions from an economics perspective. He will provide a conceptual framework and empirical evidence regarding corruption and anti-corruption public policy in China. Huihua Nie is a Professor in the School of Economics at Renmin University of China, and Deputy Dean of the university’s National Academy of Development and Strategy, one of the top twenty-five think tanks in China. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Renmin University of China in 2006, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Economics at Harvard University from 2009-2010. Professor Nie is an expert in organizational economics and political economy in China. His recent research focuses on corruption, collusion between local governments and firms, and coal mine accidents in China. He has published a number of scholarly articles in well-reputed journals including Review of Economics & Statistics, Journal of Comparative Economics, Economics Letters, and China Economics Review. He was the recipient of the China National Program for Support of Top-notch Young Professionals in 2013, and won the China National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2008. Professor Nie contributes regularly to the news media on current economic, social, and political issues, and his interviews have appeared in the New York Times, NPR, CCTV, and Xinhua News Agency. Light refreshments will be provided. Please RSVP to [email protected]. This is the second in a series of talks jointly hosted by the Allard Prize for International Integrity and the Centre for Asian Legal Studies. The first talk featured Randall Morck and you can view the event summary here.
Deadline: Nominations for 2017 Allard Prize
Call for Nominations: Allard Prize For International Integrity is now accepting nominations for 2017. The Prize is awarded biennially to an individual, movement or organization that has demonstrated exceptional courage and leadership in combating corruption, especially through promoting transparency, accountability and the Rule of Law. To submit a nomination: http://www.allardprize.org/nominations/submit