Category: LIDS LIVE

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LIDS contributes to new Brazilian book on advertising food to children

September 4, 2013 – Maria Parra-Orlandoni

Isabella Henriques, director of Brazilian NGO Instituto Alana, and Veet Vivarta from Brazilian NGO Brazilian News Agency for Children’s Rights (ANDI) have just edited and released a book entitled Food Advertising and Children – Regulation in Brazil and the World (Publicidade de alimentos e crianças: regulação no Brasil e no mundo), which analyzes the local and global regulatory policies of food advertising, comparing the initiatives of different countries.

About the Book

The book, which is a collection of essays, was published through a joint effort by Instituto Alana, ANDI, and LIDS.  LIDS’ major contribution was conducting comparative research involving seven selected countries: Canada, Australia, United States, European Union, Sweden, France, Germany, and United Kingdom.

Aimed at legal professionals and public administrators, the collection of essays seeks to inform and encourage the adoption of effective measures to protect children from the negative effects of food advertising in Brazil and elsewhere. “Knowing the way other countries are dealing with the issue of advertising of food and non-alcoholic beverages is essential for the construction and implementation of the Brazilian legal bases,” writes Henriques.

The book meets Instituto Alana and ANDI’s objectives of promoting children’s rights through media, which is a goal that requires accounting for the economic interests of large industries. The hope is that focusing on children’s advertising helps boost responsible consumerism from and early age. In the case of ads for foods with high-caloric content or low nutritional value, addressing children’s advertisement becomes a matter of public health due to the growing obesity epidemic among Brazilian children.

The first part of the book creates the proper context by exploring the current situation of Brazil, the laws in place, the self-regulatory agreements, and the reinforcement of statutes, bills, and relevant regulatory guidelines. It also discusses the challenges and prospects for regulation in the country, as well as the need for joint action from social organizations, schools, businesses, and governments to protect children.

The book later features an analysis by  Professor Corinna Hawkes, a key actor in the public policy agenda in the United States and president of the Group of Experts in Food Marketing for Children, at the World Health Organization. Hawkes writes about food marketing to children in the world, the policies that have been created on the subject, and the policies’ consequences.

Food Advertising and Children – Regulation in Brazil and the World is available in Brazilian bookstores. It is also available through the publisher’s web site (www.livrariasaraiva.com.br) or by phone (55 (11) 4003-3390).

About Instituto Alana and ANDI

Instituto Alana promotes critical awareness about product and services consumption practices by children in Brazilian society. ANDI is one of the leading NGOs in Latin America working at the intersection of media and development.

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Summers in International Development: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

August 30, 2013 – Sarah Weiner

This past summer, I worked for the Legal Transition Team (LTT) at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). LTT is a small unit within the Office of the General Counsel that focuses on legal reform in the countries where the Bank operates. EBRD is unique among development banks for its emphasis on developing the private sector, so LTT’s overarching mission is to encourage reforms that promote investment and the growth of small and medium enterprises.

My work fell in the public procurement sector and primarily consisted of helping my supervisor complete a region-wide assessment of procurement legislation. Broadly speaking, a public procurement law regulates the procedures through which governments award contracts to private entities and thus sits at the front lines of curbing corruption in many countries. In my role, I analyzed each country’s procurement law with the help of an objective questionnaire that identifies whether each law contains the elements of the benchmark set by LTT. I then produced graphs illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of each law with regard to several categories, such as transparency and efficiency.

The most interesting part of my internship was communicating those results to government officials in each country and working with them to ensure that our data was accurate and fully reflected the progress of recent reforms. I can’t imagine another summer job where I would have gotten exposure to such a variety of different legal systems and had the platform to communicate with (and be heard by) so many different governments. Although the vast majority of my communication with government officials was done over the phone, the highlight of my summer was meeting with representatives from Tajikistan in person, as they happened to be in London for a conference. Navigating that meeting reminded me of one of the reasons I sought out an internship in international development—discussing the law with someone from a different culture, background, and legal system from your own makes your work that much more challenging and interesting!

In short, my internship at EBRD exposed me to the ways international organizations engage in policy dialogues with governments to promote legal reform. Further, I was included in office-wide meetings discussing EBRD policies, initiatives, and challenges and got an overall sense for the way a multilateral development bank operates—all while meeting and working with interesting people from all over the world!

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World Bank Attorneys Host LIDS Members for Summer Lunch Discussion on Corruption Enforcement

August 1, 2013 – Daniel Holman

This summer, LIDS members working in DC sat down to lunch with attorneys at the World Bank.  HLS alum and LIDS Advisory Board member Cid Butuyan and two of his attorney colleagues discussed their work with the Bank’s Integrity Vice Presidency, the division of the World Bank that investigates reports of misconduct and administers sanctions against firms that engage in corrupt behavior.  The role of multilateral lenders in shaping anti-corruption norms is a cutting edge area of law – The Economist recently reported on the past year’s uptick in enforcement actions – and was a topic of conversation at LIDS 2012 symposium on Corruption and Development.  At the lunch, LIDS members learned about the career paths that led attorneys to the Bank and about the interaction between the Bank and their interaction with lawyers working on the finance side of the Bank and in the private sector.

(Image courtesy of World Bank Photo Collection. Some rights reserved.)

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LIDS White Paper accepted for publication by ABA

During the 2012-2013 academic year, LIDS commenced its first White Paper project led by Maryum Jordan and Delphia Lim. The team consisted of the following students from Harvard Law School and the Fletcher School: Kwabena Acheampong, David Donatti , Patrick Kibbe, Jose Vicente Santos de Mendonca, and Melanie Reed. The White Paper, entitled “Access to Remedies for Public Harm Caused by Foreign Public Bribery: Proposals for Legal Reform in the U.S.,” investigates compensation options for corporate public bribery, with a particular focus on the harm faced by the public in developing countries. The paper spotlights the proposition that remedies for this type of public harm should be provided by the home states of the corporate perpetrators. After examining the current international and American legal frameworks on corruption, the paper explores two ideas for promoting more robust victim’s compensation under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The first idea considers mechanisms for redistributing the fines collected from FCPA violations and the second considers an amendment to the FCPA to include a private right of action for foreign plaintiffs.

After the White Paper was drafted, it was accepted for publication by the American Bar Association’sCriminal Justice magazine. Criminal Justice is published quarterly for the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section–members include defense and prosecution lawyers, judges, and academics. The published White Paper will be available in the Fall 2013 edition.

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Law and International Development in Private Practice

April 14, 2013 – Maria Parra-Orlandoni

LIDS was delighted to host panelists Anne Falvey from Sidley Austin and Dolly Mirchandani from Allen & Overy to discuss private firm work related to international development, including project finance, energy and infrastructure, and public-private partnerships. What followed was a stimulating conversation about the intricacies of this practice area. Dolly and Anne explained that much of the work’s complexity can be traced to the differing perspectives of each potential client, which includes government agencies, debtors, and project owners themselves. Accordingly, the panelists highlighted some of the challenges of brokering ideas to different clients to ensure that a proposed project would be completed. Dolly and Anne also discussed yet another layer of complexity: international development projects, while mostly built on a series of commercial contracts, often have complex policy underpinnings.

Overall, the guest panelists’ account of their work was fascinating. Each of them described the exciting variety of industries their work has touched, including renewable energy, electricity transmission, schools, and even satellites. Both Anne and Dolly graciously hosted small group discussions following the panel presentation, leaving many law students eager to learn more about an international development practice in a private law firm!

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Summers in International Development: Vilnius, Lithuania

October 11, 2012 – Daniel Holman

For summer following my 1L year, I worked with the European office of a U.S. staffing and business services company in Vilnius, Lithuania.  Building in part on connections to the Lithuanian-American community, the company had recently found success in expanding to Europe by recruiting IT professionals in the Baltic to provide services U.S. and Western European companies.  Beside the opportunity to go abroad and experience an in-house legal department’s perspective, the legal underpinnings of the cross-border investments and trade in services on which that business depended was an added point of interest.  In addition to reviewing contracts and other work from the headquarters in Detroit, I spent much of the summer interacting with Lithuanian business and government leaders to understand the benefits and challenges of attracting and managing foreign investment.  Lithuania’s position as something of a crossroads nation–both geographically between east and west, and developmentally in the way it has built an advanced economy while still in wake of rapid social changes following independence in 1991–make it an interesting place to observe and think about how globalization plays out in different corners of the world.  It was also a reminder that development doesn’t just happen in the global south, but within individual countries and regions, and that opportunities for growth and development in one area may shape and be shaped by events far afield.

If you have any questions about Lithuania, in house work, or how any of this actually relates to development, don’t hesitate to contact me at dholman@jd14.law.harvard.edu.

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