UNIDROIT

Call for Application: Chair Holder/Researcher at the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT)

In the context of a UNIDROIT - Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Chair Programme the UNIDROIT Secretariat is currently inviting applications for the position of Chair Holder/ Researcher

UNIDROIT 2022 international summer school call for applications/UNIDROIT Université internationale d'été sur les instruments relatifs a l’unification du droit privé 

January 31, 2022

UNIDROIT organizes an International Summer School and is currently accepting applications for the Institute’s 2022 International Summer School intended for judges, public lawyers, and senior legislative drafters from African countries. UNIDROIT will also allow a limited number of scholarships to help attend the Summer School.

The application deadline is 28 February 2022.

The Legal Guide on Agricultural Land Investment Contracts: Moving foreign investment governance in the right direction

The UNIDROIT-FAO-IFAD Legal Guide on Agricultural Land Investment Contracts (The Guide) is a tool to promote responsible agricultural foreign investment. Many international organisations insist that more private investment is needed to meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Agricultural foreign investment, particularly, is central to a world with no poverty (SDG 1) and no hunger (SDG 2) (The Guide 2019, 10, 13), but the link between foreign investment and these goals should not be taken for granted. Foreign investment can probably promote these and other SDGs; however, it also creates costs and risks.

Human Rights and Agricultural Land Investment Contracts – Part One

By bringing forward this interlegal sensibility, ALIC invites the investor to think of their own best interest in broad term and to take the time to understand already-existing, pluralist socio-legal expectations and practices. It also implicitly reminds the investor to take the time to build a relationship with local communities that is buttressed by an iterative understanding of fairness (a core tenet of commercial law). Without such a relationship and appropriate due diligence, ALIC in effect recommends to the investor and the local community to not pursue the deal – no one benefits from a land transaction that is only made possible by disrupting local people’s lives or dislocating them from their homeland.

Introduction: Symposium on UNIDROIT/FAO/IFAD Draft Legal Guide on Agricultural Land Investment Contracts (ALIC)

Welcome to the Symposium on the Zero Draft of the UNIDROIT/FAO/IFAD Legal Guide on Agricultural Land Investment Contracts (ALIC) (hereinafter Legal Guide or Zero Draft). The Legal Guide, is being developed by a UNIDROIT Working Group in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).