From 16th-18th May 2018, Assistant Professor Monika Prusinowska participated in a conference called “Geography and Legal Culture on the International Bench”. The conference took place in the Hague and was organized by the Centre of Excellence at the Department of Public and International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Oslo, Pluri Courts, which studies the legitimacy of international courts and tribunals from legal, political science and philosophical perspectives.
The purpose of the conference was to analyze when and how adjudicators’ personal identity, and in particular features relating to national origin and legal culture, affect the composition of international courts and tribunals and judicial behavior. The conference sought to promote a higher understanding of both the current challenges and contemporary best practices in terms of assessing and promoting geographic and legal cultural diversity on the international bench.
Assistant Professor Monika Prusinowska spoke about the involvement of Chinese arbitrators in the system of international arbitration and presented the findings of a survey conducted for the purpose of this conference discussions. She sat on the panel with Judge Howard Morrison who currently resides as an Appeal Division Judge at the International Criminal Court and with Professor Stacie Strong from the University of Missouri who worked as a US Supreme Court Fellow with the Federal Judicial Centre.
Other notable speakers of the conference included, among others, a former Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights, Angelika Nußberger, a former member of the WTO Appellate Body, Giorgio Sacerdot, and a Judge from the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Vivian Margarette Solomon.
