Week Four: The Presentation
Last week was presentation week. At 9:00 p.m. EST (9:00 a.m. PHST), I sat in on part of an ASEAN colloquium for the judiciary on Civil and Criminal IP Case Management. The presenters in this part of the colloquium included Scott Ciment, one of the members of ROLC, the executive director of the World Justice Project (Elizabeth Anderson), and an associate judge from the court of appeals in the Philippines (Hob. Michael P. Ong).
For his part in the colloquium, Scott would discuss judicial integrity and independence and the benefits and risks of establishing too many specialized courts in countries burdened with huge caseloads and low funding. Specifically, he discussed the pros and cons of creating commercial courts for niche commercial litigation, specifically Intellectual Property courts, and the risks specialized courts have to judicial independence. More on his part of the colloquium can be found here: https://rolcsc.org/rolc-senior-rule-of-law-expert-delivers-presentation-on-specialized-courts-to-asean-judicial-colloquium-in-manila-philippines/.
Even though I was not presenting, I was nervous just sitting in on the talk. I put together a presentation for Scott to use for the talk, and the other individuals sitting in on the colloquium were other judges and legal professionals who were from ASEAN countries. Fortunately for me, I had nothing to be concerned about. Overall the presentation went well, and I was informed later that my slides were received well.
As for the rest of the presentation itself, it was very informative. The members of the panel gave a presentation about judicial independence, rule of law, the relationships between the two, and how judicial independence is practiced in Filipino courts. Judge Ong specifically discussed the practice of red-tagging in the Philippines. Red-tagging is a practice wherein individuals are tagged as rebels or supporters of communism. According to the Human Rights Watch, this has been a way to silence activists and critics of the government in the past. However, on May 8, the Supreme Court of the Philippines determined that red tagging was a threat to other individuals. Judge Ong highlighted this as an example of judicial independence, since the ruling was against the government's interest but in-line with the law. I also got to learn more about specialized courts generally, the pros and cons of specialized courts, how they can be used in civil and criminal IP cases, and what is needed to make a specialized court work.
The day after the presentation, I got to talk a bit with Scott about what happened. He mentioned that he would typically be there, but for obvious reasons he could not be there on such short notice, and had to be there via zoom instead. It got me thinking about how much zoom or other streaming services would impact international law work. Most of my coworkers still physically travel places to carry out work, but "zooming in" instead of paying time and money for plane tickets, hotel rooms, and other required amenities would be significantly more cost effective on organizations, especially those that work on a limited budget. It has only been a few years since the pandemic started but given all the changes that have happened since then, the next generation of international lawyers may prefer zooming in when they can, instead of flying in.
I also got to see the South Carolina Law School for the first time last week. I usually walk by it on my way to work, but I had to go to the law library to do some work for one of the other experts at ROLC. The building was not what I expected – the law school building was only six years old. In a city where most of the buildings are very historic and have been reused over and over again, I was surprised to see such a new building. Seeing the building though only made me miss our school more.