Bergen Exchanges

2021 Bergen Exchanges

BeEx2021 will take place 16-20 August with combined live and online seminars. The main focus will be on Inequality, Autocratization dynamics and Child Rights. Click here to view the program. Log on to the Zoom Webinar here.

The PhD course Effects of Lawfare 2021 will run from 2 to 23 August. The course combines real time online sessions, individual and group mentoring sessions and digital (hybrid) public seminars. Read more about the PhD course here.

To express interest in attending, please contact Director Siri Gloppen (siri.gloppen@uib.no). For information about traveling to Bergen, please see this page.

If you are interested in volunteering at the Bergen Exchanges and will be in Bergen during August 2021, contact the Volunteer Coordinator for the Exchanges, Alida Steigler (alida.steigler@cmi.no).

What are the Bergen Exchanges?

The Bergen Exchanges are an annual event taking place in Bergen in August each year. It is a meeting place for scholars and practitioners from across the globe who seek to understand how law serves as an instrument of change – and how it shapes and is shaped by power relations. During a week of public discussions, we examine strategic uses of rights and law and how legal institutions function as arenas for political contestation (lawfare).

The multi-disciplinary and international nature of the Bergen Exchanges makes it a unique space for improving research strategies and methods to grasp the effects of law and lawfare. This includes the use of legal instruments by governments to shape societies – whether through constitutional change, international treaties, statutes or regulations – as well as by social actors who go to court or otherwise engage rights and law to advance their goals. Effects take different forms. How legal strategies alter political dynamics, ideas and discourses can be as important for long term transformation as more immediate changes in laws, policies, or the distribution of resources. We also seek to better understand the functioning of legal and administrative institutions as they adjudicate, interpret and implement legal norms.

In connection with the Bergen Exchanges, we have an annual, interdisciplinary PhD course on Effects of Lawfare. The PhD course is free of charge and open to applicants from Norwegian and international institutions on a first-come first serve basis (but out-of-town applicants have to cover their own travel and accommodation costs, as there are no scholarships available).

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