The event will take place April 27, from 7 to 9pm, in the Rosedale Room of the Marriot Bloor-91��ɫville Hotel, 90 Bloor St. E., Toronto. Everyone is welcome to attend. It is sponsored by the 91��ɫ Centre for International Security Studies and the at 91��ɫ.

The forum will feature analyst, author and educator Daryl Copeland, 91��ɫ law Professor of Osgoode Hall Law School and director of the Jack & Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security, and Dutch and Australian media theorist and innovative philosopher Geert Lovink. 91��ɫ political science Professor ��Dz�������������ٳ󲹳�, director of the 91��ɫ Centre for International & Security Studies, will be the forum’s moderator.

Lovink is a research professor of Interactive Media at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, a professor of new media at the University of Amsterdam and is the founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam.

Before joining Osgoode, Scott was the Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in 2000 and a professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, from 1989-2000. Scott is currently a commissioner on the civil-society (Truth Commission) in Honduras in the context of which information sourced from WikiLeaks plays a significant role. He is also convening editor of the quarterly journal  and series editor of the . He was named a 2010  Visiting Fellow and is an editor of  (Hart Publishing, 2001).

Latham’s research is focused on technologies of border surveillance; critical theories of sovereignty, global governance and migration; international communication; the politics of knowledge and large-scale monitoring systems. He is the author of B and co-editor of and .

Copeland is an adjunct professor and Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, who specializes in foreign policy, global issues, diplomacy and public management. He is the author of . From 1981 to 2009, Copeland served as a Canadian diplomat with postings in Thailand, Ethiopia, New Zealand and Malaysia. During the 1980s and 1990s, he was elected five times to the executive committee of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers. From 1996-1999 he was national program director of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs in Toronto and editor of Behind the Headlines, then Canada's international affairs magazine. In 2000, he received the Canadian Foreign Service Officer Award.

For more information, visit the 91��ɫ Centre for International & Security Studies website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Right: Professor Sanjeev Purshotam Sahni (left), head of strategic human resources and assistant dean of Research & International Collaborations at Jindal Global Law School, and Osgoode Hall Law School Dean Lorne Sossin

Osgoode is leading the way among Canadian law schools in this kind of research-driven collaboration in India and in thinking creatively about how to engage legal educators and the legal profession in both countries to achieve mutually beneficial results, says Lisa Philipps, Osgoode associate dean research, graduate studies & institutional relations.

The delegates found the trip valuable both for their current research on transnational legal issues and for the development of Osgoode’s institutional relationships and collaborative programs in India.

“As this Osgoode trip to India vividly demonstrated to those who participated, we have much of value to learn from India, and much to share as well,” says Osgoode Dean .

Above: Professor Charles D. Maddox, assistant director of the Centre for Global Corporate & Financial Law & Policy, Professor Vikramaditya Khanna, visiting faculty at Jindal Global Law School, and Philipps, associate dean research, graduate studies & institutional relations at Osgoode, discuss issues at the symposium in India

Sossin and Philipps were among the Osgoode delegates to attend a two-day joint symposium, , with faculty and graduate students from Jindal Global Law School at O.P. Jindal Global University. The symposium explored issues ranging from access to justice and legal regulation of sexuality to the tax treatment of foreign investment.

Left: From left, Arun Khatri, Jindal Global Law School research associate, with Dayna Scott, Lorne Sossin and Allan Hutchinson of Osgoode

It was a continuation of last year’s symposium at 91��ɫ, funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada and Osgoode's , which included a delegation from India (See YFile, Oct. 25, 2010).

“This two-part conference was designed to establish an Indian-Canadian conversation on issues of pressing mutual interest,” says Philipps. “Indeed, too often, a separation of opinions between elements of the global North and global South is presumed insurmountable on issues ranging from climate change to development. In the last five years, from Hong Kong to Copenhagen, critical global issues have been mired in a difference in perspective between nations.”

Right: From left, Philipps; Professor Y.S.R. Murthy, assistant dean of projects & institutional development and executive director of the Centre for Human Rights Studies; and Charles D. Maddox

Through research and collaborations, such as the one with India, “We can facilitate discussions about innovative solutions to local and global policy issues,” she says. “Canada and India have the possibility to play bridge-builders in this North-South dialogue. It is believed that a Canadian-Indian dialogue can adopt a more sober, and potentially incisive, outlook on a range of global policy issues that simply cannot be ignored as yet another decade draws to a close.”

One of the benefits of the collaboration is a Memorandum of Understanding between the two law schools, which is currently being developed to include JD and graduate student exchanges and continued faculty visits. Discussions are underway toward a variety of joint teaching and research initiatives. Osgoode also renewed its student exchange agreement with the National Law School of India at Bangalore and strengthened relations with other law schools, including the National Law University in Delhi.

Left: Professor François Tanguay-Renaud (left), acting director of the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security, and Sanjeev Purshotam Sahni

“Osgoode faculty, staff and students have expressed both interest and excitement to develop more exchanges, internships, joint conferences, research projects and collaborative pro bono projects, just to scratch the surface,” says Sossin.

In addition, Osgoode faculty met with Supreme Court justices, government ministers, independent think tanks, non-governmental organizations and leading members of the legal profession.

A selection of the best new research coming out of this collaboration will be published in an upcoming peer-reviewed special issue of the .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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Good governance can have a positive effect on development – helping countries to create the necessary conditions for the proper functioning of markets, private enterprises, institutions and civil society. Many think-tanks, academics and international development and donor agencies, including the World Bank, devote substantial attention to good governance and its indicators.

As 91��ɫ Professor Joseph Mensah notes, however, there is a growing concern that the bulk of data on which the prevailing indicators of good governance is based derives almost exclusively from the perspectives of experts in the global North with little or no input from stakeholders in the South. In an effort to rectify this issue, the (ComSec) in London, England, invited Mensah to help organize a two-day workshop in Accra, Ghana, to gather Ghanaians' views on, and perceptions of, good governance. The workshop was held Jan. 18 and 19 with the hopes of extending the exercise to other commonwealth nations in the future.

Left: Joseph Mensah

Mensah was invited to help facilitate the workshop due in part to his role in a project led by the that aimed to discern which health programs in the developing world are effective enough to be replicated in other communities (see YFile, April 10, 2007). Last July, all of the African researchers who were part of the global project came together in Accra for a workshop Mensah led on disseminating their research findings. The publicity surrounding the workshop, and Mensah’s role in leading it, caught the attention of ComSec; they were eager to draw on Mensah’s expertise.

African countries seem to exhibit the greatest need for good governance, notes Mensah. Though a workshop on this topic could very well be conducted in any African country, Ghana was selected as the location primarily in recognition of its recent successes in democratic governance. It is also home to the Ghana Institute of Management & Public Administration, which has a Graduate School of Governance, Leadership & Public Management well known for training many top-level managers and public servants in the West African sub-region.

To facilitate a comparative analysis among the commonwealth countries, ComSec narrowed its principles of good governance to five – accountability, transparency, predictability, capacity and participation. The goal of the workshop was to determine what sorts of indicators influence these principles and how these principles apply to commonwealth countries. A significant portion of the workshop focused on determining which of the five principles the country is lacking and which of the five are represented. Notable Ghanaian members of parliament (MPs) and ministers, including the Ghana minister of foreign affairs, as well as business leaders, civil society organizations and academics all took part in the discussions.

Right: Workshop participants

“Right away, it became clear to me that the five principles emanated from the global North and they box other countries into a particular conceptualization of good governance that may not always be appropriate or applicable to their own national context,” says Mensah, who co-led the workshop with Roger Koranteng, a governance adviser for ComSec.

Some of the questions explored by workshop participants included: What is the relationship between good governance and development? Is the relationship between the two one-way or recursive? Which indicators help create the principles of good governance identified by ComSec? Of the five principles, which ones do Ghanaians find more important? What principles would Ghanaians subtract or add to the five, based on their own national context?

“The workshop was a resounding success and received significant national press,” notes Mensah. “Some of the Ghanaian government officials and MPs who participated over the two days plan to conduct similar workshops across the country to help educate citizens about the need for good governance and institutional efficiency.”

Mensah is now tasked with producing a report for ComSec on how Ghanaians perceive good governance, based on the deliberations of the workshop. He will also conduct an intensive review of literature on the subject and offer context and a rationale for the selection and use of specific indicators and principles in Ghana.

“When you try to pin down what good governance means and determine its indicators, its illusory character becomes clear,” says Mensah. “The observation ‘Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts’ – attributed to Einstein – perhaps sums it best.”

Mensah, who teaches in 91��ɫ's in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS) and is coordinator of the International Development Studies Program, is busy with a number of other projects. In February, a second edition of his book (Fernwood Publishing 2010) will be released. He has also been invited by the , part of the World Health Organization, to compete for funding on universal health financing. As part of the invitation, he will participate in a workshop in Cape Town, South Africa, in March.

Recently, Mensah was nominated for the LA&PS Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

For more information on the good governance workshop in Accra or Mensah’s research, e-mail jmensah@yorku.ca.

By Kristin Taylor, communications coordinator, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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