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School of Law

Governance reform in small jurisdictions: challenges and opportunities

When: Tuesday, January 17, 2023, 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Where: Room 2.1, Second Floor, CCLS Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London 67-69 Lincoln’s Inn Fields London WC2A 3JB

Join us for a free half-day symposium to discuss political, constitutional and electoral reform in small self-governing territories and dependencies. A panel of experts will consider such questions as: what benefits can come from constitutional reform? Is reform ever worthwhile in its own right? What challenges do small jurisdictions face in political reform without sovereignty? Confirmed topics include:

  • Legislative reform in the Isle of Man
  • The impact of political parties on the States of Jersey
  • Monitoring electoral reforms in Commonwealth small jurisdictions
  • Co-governance arrangements between the UK and Montserrat

Panel speakers

Dr Matt Bishop is a Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Sheffield. His primary area of research interest is the political economy of development, with a particular focus on small states in general, and the Caribbean specifically. He also works more broadly on issues of globalisation, global governance, trade policy and, increasingly, narcopolitics. He has advised the Department for International Development (DfID), the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on small states issues, as well as Caribbean governments.

Professor Jack Corbett is Professor at the University of Southampton. His research primarily focuses the democratic politics of small island states and territories. He is also presently co-leading a major programme of research with Matt Bishop (below) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London examining the opportunities for long-term development in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in an era of accelerating climate change.

Professor Peter Edge is Professor of Law at the School of Law, and the Centre for Global Politics, at Oxford Brookes. He has published extensively on Manx law, and broader legal context of UK dependent territories. Recent Manx work includes a multimethod analysis of the temporary licensing of foreign counsel as Manx advocates, and the reception and implications of the Lisvane Review of the Functioning of Tynwald He received his PhD in Manx constitutional law from Cambridge University.

Dr Emily Wilkinson is a Senior Research Fellow in the ODI Global Risks and Resilience Programme, leading a team working on ‘Advancing resilience ambition and financing’. She has 25 years’ experience as a researcher, analyst, journalist, lecturer and adviser to government on resilience, sustainable development, climate change adaptation and risk governance. Her current work focuses on sustaining development in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the context of climate change. She has a PhD in Geography from UCL.

Policy-makers, lawyers, politicians, administrators, academics and all those curious about small jurisdictions’ politics are welcome.

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