Asian Institute of International Financial Law (AIIFL), HKU

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AIIFL Distinguished Public Lecture

Meet the Team

AIIFL Distinguished Public Lecture

The Transatlantic Divide: Development and Security

The 6th AIIFL Distinguished Public Lecture

Date & Time Friday, 17 October 2003 6:30-7:30 pm (HKT)
Duration 1:00
Location Council Chamber, 8/F Meng Wah Complex, The University of Hong Kong

The lecture developed the hypothesis that the American form of modernity grew up and developed under different historical and economic conditions than did the European version of modern social, political and legal organization. This has, in turn, resulted in alternative visions of international relations, law and obligations. While there have been various currents of rapprochement and separation over the twentieth century, the events of the post-cold war world have emphasized important underlying differences in these alternative views of modernity that have become manifest in US-EU antagonisms on issues ranging from Iraq to multilateral institutions like the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court. However, the characterization of unilateral against multilateral does not adequately capture the causes or the meaning of these differences. Professor Heller completed the lecture with observations on problems relating to security — including terror, human rights and development aid — to elaborate these complex interactions.

About the Speaker

Professor Thomas C. Heller

Lewis Talbot and Nadine Hearn Shelton Professor of International Legal Studies, School of Law, Stanford University; and Paul Hastings; and Visiting Professor in Corporate and Financial Law, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong