Oxford Internet Institute Bellwether Lecture presented by Professor Dan Burk on Copyright, Culture, and Community in Virtual Worlds

We have accumulated an increasingly rich body of data concerning online communities, particularly those that share virtual environments. The on-line interactions of such communities are uniquely mediated by the audiovisual content of the software interface, which becomes a feature of shared culture. Much of this content is subject to copyright law, which confers on the copyright owner the legal right to prevent certain unauthorized uses of the content. Such exclusive rights impose a limiting factor on the development of communities that are situated around the interface content, as the rights, privileges, and exceptions associated with copyright generally tend to disregard the cultural significance of copyrighted content. Thus, the opportunity for on-line communities to legally access and manipulate the graphical elements on which their communities are built is frought with potential legal liability. Reconsideration of current copyright law would be required in order to accommodate the cohesion of on-line communities through cultural uses of copyrighted content.

Please visit http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/events/ for more information.
Please email events@oii.ox.ac.uk to register for the event.

Reuters Institute / Nuffield College Media & Politics seminars
The following seminars will be given at 5pm on Fridays, normally in the Butler Room, Nuffield College.
Convenors: Neil Fowler, James Painter, David Levy

Speakers: Professor Ivor Gaber, University of Sussex, Dr Maya Even, visiting fellow, Reuters Institute

The Hungarian ambassador to London will discuss Hungary’s Euro-Atlantic integration after regaining freedom in 1989. His Excellency will not skirt sensitive questions such as Hungary’s position on Russia, or European energy security and its consequences for Hungary. He will also talk about the new Hungarian constitution.

During a speech in 1957, Prime Minister Harold MacMillan declared “our people have never had it so good”. Now, more than half a century later, are we fundamentally any better off? Through discussion of technological advances, social changes, political reforms, and economic shocks and recessions, this panel will seek to question whether the world we currently live in is indeed a better place than it was in the 1950s.

Chaired by Professor Brian Nolan, Professor of Social Policy, the panel will consist of:

*Dr Max Roser, James Martin Fellow at The Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School
*Dr Anders Sandberg, James Martin Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute
*Professor Robert Walker, Professor of Social Policy

A drinks reception will follow, all welcome.

We live in a world of information. Together, both the so-called copyright (or content) industries and its consumers (via user-generated content) provide an enormous amount of information (or content). But paradoxically, we simultaneously suffer from a deficit of “smart” information. Smart information is information that is traceable and therefore reliable, trust-worthy, and ultimately verifiable. This essay sets forth various reasons for this scarcity of smart information and proposes one type of solution in the realm of consumer goods: a tracermark. Earlier work examining the function of certification marks in global value networks (aka ‘supply chains’) points to an urgent albeit emerging need for more nimble, hybrid, and transparent forms of marking products and services.

Global digital networks have the potential to be combined with other kinds of technologies (e.g., QR, UPC codes, smart phone apps, and other forms of smart information intermediaries) to contribute meaningfully to the production of smart information and therefore to the regulation of goods and services in the consumer interest. Smarter information can be incentivized into the direction of creation and disclosure within a soft regulatory framework. And recognized categories of intellectual property such as trademarks and certification marks then could evolve to impart more information about specific process measures, in addition to more overt product characteristics – that is, to trace so-called credence as well as the more commonly accepted experience (or search) attributes important for consumers. Proposed here therefore is a tool called a “tracermark” (a hybrid of trademark and certification mark), which would allow stakeholders to disclose and trace the provenance of opaque quality attributes associated with particular goods and services throughout global value networks.

The presenter will introduce different crowdfunding platforms which serve different purposes, for instance education-related initiatives, charitable works, new products and start-ups.

Presenter: Shan Huang, D.Phil student at Department of Education, Founder of OxFund

This is a joint event between the Oxford Martin School and The Oxford International Relations Society (IRSoC)

The lecture is free and open to all and will be followed by a drinks reception for members of IRSoc, membership is available on the night.

Major General (Rtd) Jonathan Shaw CB CBE has 32 years experience in the UK Army during which time he commanded on operations at every rank up to two star. He has gained extensive operational experience in the Falklands, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan and has a profound knowledge of the workings of Whitehall and international strategy. Major Shaw is the former Assistant Chief of Defence Staff and Colonel Commandant of The Parachute Regiment (Director of the Special Forces).

As Assistant Chief of Defence Staff, his responsibilities included international security policy, global issues and he headed the Defence Cyber Security Programme.

Graduating from Oxford having read Politics and Philosophy, he joined the Parachute Regiment in 1981 and retired as its Colonel Commandant in 2012. Since leaving the Ministry of Defence in 2012, Major General Jonathan Shaw holds consulting roles at three security companies, Optima Group UK, Certivox, and Tempest Group.

Reuters Institute seminars “The business and practice of journalism”
The following seminars will be given at 2pm on Wednesdays, normally in the Barclay Room, Green Templeton College.
Convenors: James Painter, David Levy

Speaker: Kevin Sutcliffe, head of news programmes for Europe, Vice News

Speaker:

Dr Marion Fresia (Professeure assistante, Institut d’ethnologie, Université de Neuchâtel)

Ethnographic approaches of policy processes are usually interested in issues of power and control, translation and mediation, contestation and resistance, and the formal and implicit norms at stake in the formulation, implementation and outcomes of policy. They draw on micro-scale observation and widely rely on participant-observation and multi-situated fieldwork as methodological tools to inquire into social actors’ actual practices and agency at different knots of the ‘implementation’ chain. This presentation will discuss some of the potential and challenges of mobilizing such approaches in the study of global refugee policy, at both epistemological and methodological levels. Drawing on a wider research project on the every-day work of ‘asylum-makers’ within UNHCR, it will first examine the added value of ethnography for analysing how policy agendas are set, formulated and made ‘global’ at the level of UNHCR’s Executive Committee in Geneva. It will then discuss the potential of such approaches for studying the actual implementation of global refugee policy, by taking the example of the politics and practice of refugee status determination at the level of two UNHCR country offices in Ankara and Nouakchott.

About the speaker:

Marion Fresia is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Ethnography, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Her research interests focus on the anthropology of development and social change; humanitarian aid and forced migration; and the anthropology of international institutions. Part of her current research examines UNHCR from the ‘inside’, exploring how its boundaries take shape through the daily social practices of an assemblage of experts, diplomats and NGOs constantly producing and reproducing the refugee label worldwide. Her doctorate is from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France, for which she conducted extensive fieldwork with Mauritanian refugees in Senegal (2001-2005). She subsequently worked with UNHCR as an education expert between 2005 and 2007.

The Annual Zola Skweyiya Lecture

Reuters Institute / Nuffield College Media & Politics seminars
The following seminars will be given at 5pm on Fridays, normally in the Butler Room, Nuffield College.
Convenors: Neil Fowler, James Painter, David Levy

Speaker: Anthony Barnett, founder of openDemocracy

As former European Commissioner for Climate Action and as host Minister of the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Connie Hedegaard has been at the sharp end of global agreements. While the Copenhagen talks ended with a breakthrough recognition of the scientific case for restraining temperature rises to no more than 2°C, the accord failed to achieve commitments to reducing emissions. The outcome frustrated many and Hedegaard has subsequently described the eight-draft, 115-country process as a ‘nightmare’. Hedegaard refused to give up.

Two years later in Durban, she made a stand against fierce opposition to push through a timetable for new negotiations, this time designed to create a global pact on emissions reductions. The 2015 UNFCCC in Paris is the culmination of that timetable and the global pact, if it is achieved, will come into force in 2020. Presiding over the European 2030 Climate and Energy Framework, which commits to a 40% reduction in emissions, Hedegaard said: “We have sent a strong signal to the rest of the world. We have now done our homework and now it’s up to other big economies to do theirs”.

Having seen the election results unfold, the topic of political strategy and communication is as relevant as ever in highlighting the ways in which politicians and organisations seek to influence public opinion and shape political debate. The Oxford Forum welcomes you to the Political Strategy Panel Debate to discuss the challenges faced, and the solutions provided, in devising an effective communication strategy.
This event will be co-hosted with the PPE society and the Journal of Political and Constitutional Studies.
Following the debate, we will be having dinner with the speakers in the private dining room of Christ Church. Tickets are available to purchase at
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/oxford-forums-political-strategy-speaker-dinner-tickets-16819258856
It is an unmissable opportunity to engage more directly with the speakers!

Reuters Institute seminars “The business and practice of journalism”
The following seminars will be given at 2pm on Wednesdays, normally in the Barclay Room, Green Templeton College.
Convenors: James Painter, David Levy

Speaker: Tom Standage, digital editor, The Economist

Speaker: Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill (Emeritus Fellow, All Souls College, University of Oxford)

In 1977, as national refugee status determination procedures were gaining new life, States members of UNHCR’s Executive Committee asked the Office to provide guidance on the interpretation and application of the 1951 Convention/1967 Protocol. The outcome was the 1979 UNHCR Handbook, still widely cited in courts around the world, but substantially unchanged notwithstanding successive ‘re-issues’. Following adoption of its Agenda for Protection in 2000, UNHCR sought to keep up with jurisprudential developments and emergent issues by publishing supplementary guidelines, for example, on exclusion, gender, social group, and children; these were mostly drafted in-house, like the original Handbook, and without any formal input from States or other stakeholders. Following criticism of its 2013 guidelines on military service, however, UNHCR began to consider how external input could be usefully and effectively managed, for example, through the circulation of drafts for comment. Authoritative and influential guidelines will need a solid methodology when it comes to synthesizing best practice and pointing the way ahead, and UNHCR cannot just rely on its statutory and treaty role in ‘supervising the application’ of the 1951 Convention. In some respects, its task is analogous to that of the International Law Commission, incorporating both codification (identifying where States now see the law) and progressive development (showing how the law should develop consistently, if protection is to keep in step with need). So, what are the issues on which further guidance is needed today? What, if any, are the limits to interpretation, and when are new texts required? In drafting guidelines, who should be consulted? And how should others’ views and analysis be taken into account?

About the speaker:

Professor Guy S. Goodwin-Gill is Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford. He is Professor of International Refugee Law at Oxford and was formerly Professor of Asylum Law at the University of Amsterdam. He served as a Legal Adviser in the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) from 1976-1988. He practises as a Barrister from Blackstone Chambers, London, and he has written extensively on refugees, migration, international organisations, elections, democratisation and child soldiers. Recent publications include: The Refugee in International Law (OUP, 2007), 3rd ed. with Dr Jane McAdam; Free and Fair Elections (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2nd ed., 2006); and Basic Documents on Human Rights (OUP, 2006), 5th ed., with Ian Brownlie, eds.

Twenty minute talk, one hour discussion. Free entry, no need to book, all welcome.

Reuters Institute / Nuffield College Media & Politics seminars
The following seminars will be given at 5pm on Fridays, normally in the Butler Room, Nuffield College.
Convenors: Neil Fowler, James Painter, David Levy

Speaker: Dame Margaret Beckett, MP for Derby South and former foreign secretary

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father and first Prime Minister, passed away on 23 March 2015 at the age of 91. A Cambridge-educated lawyer, Lee dominated the political stage in Singapore for more than 5 decades, and is often credited for turning Singapore from a Third World to a First World nation with a GDP per capita that is among the highest in the world.

Upon his passing, many lauded him on his achievement, hailing him as ‘the man who saw it all’ (TIME magazine), ‘a true giant of history who will be remembered for generations to come” (US President Barack Obama), ‘one of the modern world’s foremost statesmen’ (British PM David Cameron), and ‘a statesman [who was] widely respected by the international community’ (Chinese President Xi Jinping).

Lee’s critics, however, paint a different picture. To them, Lee was an authoritarian patriarch who built a Nanny State that has little tolerance for dissent. He was also a controversial figure who remained unapologetic for the numerous restrictions that were placed on individual civic liberties and other democratic norms which many modern Western societies deem sacrosanct. While recognising his legacy of unrivalled economic progress and development, Amnesty International asserts that there is ‘a dark side to what he leaves behind’, as ‘basic freedoms and human rights were [often] sacrificed’ in the pursuit of economic progress.

How do we reconcile these vastly contrasting opinions? And what implications, if any, will Lee’s passing bring for Singapore’s future? Join us for a panel discussion on the future of a post-Lee Kuan Yew Singapore. We have invited four panelists, each of whom will deliver some remarks for about 10 minutes, before we open up for a Q&A session. Entry is free for both members and non-members alike.

About the panelists: Dr Mark Frost is a historian at the University of Essex who has previously worked in the Singapore National Museum. Dr P J Thum is a historian and the coordinator of Project Southeast Asia at the University of Oxford. Professor John Quah is a Fellow of Economics at St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford. Jun Zubillaga-Pow is a co-editor of the book ‘Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures.’

This event is the brainchild of John Cheo, a graduate student at Exeter College who will also be moderating this panel.

Have you thought about using crowdfunding to fund your next degree, innovation, entrepreneurial project, charitable work, creative arts or sports club? What support you need from your college, the university and the crowdfunding platform? Speak out and let them know.

OxFund invited Jonathan May – the CEO and Co-founder of Hubbub, the representatives from the Development Offices at Green Templeton College, Keble College, Merton College, Regent’s Park, St Hugh’s College, Somerville College (the only Oxford college has its own branded crowdfunding platform) and University College, and the staff from ISIS Innovation who are working with Hubbub to build a Oxford-branded crowdfunding platform for Oxford staff and students to raise money for their entrepreneurial projects to form a panel to listen your needs.

More college’s development offices may join, as we are still in the process of confirming. Please check the Facebook event for the updates. Even your college’s development office is not in the panel, speak out your needs and we will pass them to the development office of your college.

Reuters Institute seminars “The business and practice of journalism”
The following seminars will be given at 2pm on Wednesdays, normally in the Barclay Room, Green Templeton College.
Convenors: James Painter, David Levy

Speaker: Anna Doble, assistant editor, Newsbeat, BBC Radio 1

Speaker:

Dr Phil Orchard (Senior Lecturer, Peace and Conflict Studies and International Relations, University of Queensland)

In the past two decades, global policy on internal displacement has become a discernible area of activity for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and a range of other international and non-government organizations. It is an area of policy which operates in parallel with global refugee policy, alongside but separate as it is neither as strongly legally or institutional anchored. Its development has been far more ad hoc, incremental, and divided than refugee policy. And yet global policy on internal displacement as both process and product is clearly identifiable. This is reflected in legal developments including the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the African Union’s Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (the Kampala Convention). But it is also reflected in practice within the United Nations, including the development of the cluster approach to provide protection and assistance to the internally displaced, and in the basic working processes not only of UNHCR, but also of the Security Council and the General Assembly. This suggests that incremental processes can have long term effects on global policy generally.

About the speaker:

Dr Phil Orchard is Senior Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies and International Relations at the University of Queensland. His research interests focus primarily on international efforts to provide institutional and legal forms of protection to civilians and forced migrants. His first book, A Right to Flee: Refugees, States, and the Construction of International Cooperation (Cambridge University Press, 2014), examines the origins and evolution of refugee protection from 1648 to the present. His co-edited book, with Alexander Betts and entitled Implementation in World Politics: How Norms Change Practice (Oxford University Press, 2014), examines the difficulties in implementing even strongly institutionalised human-centred norms. His current work focuses on institutional and legal protections for internally displaced persons. He has published in a variety of outlets within the fields of international relations and forced migration studies, including Global Governance, International Affairs, the Review of International Studies and Refugee Survey Quarterly.

Prior to joining UQ, Dr Orchard served as a Canadian Department of National Defence Security and Defence Forum Post-Doctoral Fellow. He holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia, and previously worked as the Assistant to the Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Internally Displaced Persons. He is also the Research Director of the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect.

Public meeting, with talk, Q&As, and discussion. Guest speaker: Dr Maidul Islam, Assistant Professor in Political Science at Presidency University, Kolkata.

Reuters Institute / Nuffield College Media & Politics seminars
The following seminars will be given at 5pm on Fridays, normally in the Butler Room, Nuffield College.
Convenors: Neil Fowler, James Painter, David Levy

Speaker: Sir Nicholas Macpherson, permanent secretary to the Treasury

Reuters Institute seminars “The business and practice of journalism”
The following seminars will be given at 2pm on Wednesdays, normally in the Barclay Room, Green Templeton College.
Convenors: James Painter, David Levy

Speaker: Bronwen Maddox, editor, Prospect magazine

This is a joint event between the Oxford Martin School and The Oxford International Relations Society (IRSoC)

For more than a century, the United States has been the world′s most powerful state. Now some analysts predict that China will soon take its place. Does this mean that we are living in a post–American world? Will China′s rapid rise spark a new Cold War between the two titans?

Javier Cercas will be at St Anne’s College as Weidenfeld Visiting Professor in Comparative European Literature, and is one of Europe’s most distinguished contemporary writers. His works, which have been translated into more than twenty languages, include the acclaimed, Soldados de Salamina (Soldiers of Salamis, 2001), which was made into a film by David Trueba in 2003, La Velocidad de la Luz (The Speed of Light, 2005), Anatomia de un Instante (The Anatomy of a Moment, 2009) and Las Leyes de la Frontera (Outlaws, 2012). He has won numerous literary awards, including the Independent’s Foreign Fiction Prize, and Spain’s National Narrative award. He is currently a Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Girona, and a columnist for El Pais. His work, which is highly politically engaged, troubles the borders of history and fiction, as it explores the Spanish civil war, or the legacies of fascism. Mr Tim Gardam, Principal of St Anne’s College, will chair a discussion between Javier Cercas, Professor Timothy Garton Ash and Professor Patrick McGuinness on European Literature, Politics and Historical Memory. A drinks reception will follow this discussion.

Twenty minute talk, one hour discussion. You’re welcome to come along just to listen, or to take an active part in the discussion. Free entry, no need to book.

Reuters Institute / Nuffield College Media & Politics seminars
The following seminars will be given at 5pm on Fridays, normally in the Butler Room, Nuffield College.
Convenors: Neil Fowler, James Painter, David Levy

Speaker: Michael Crick, political editor, Channel 4 News

• Mike set up the volunteer organisation Smile Kids Japan (website under reconstruction…) in 2007 to promote sustainable and local volunteering at institutional care facilities (sometimes called orphanages) in Japan. This grew and has helped volunteers set up visits in 25 of the 47 prefectures in Japan, seeing several thousand people volunteer their friendship to kids in care. Following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck Tohoku, Smile Kids Japan joined up with another NPO, Living Dreams, and Mike moved to the area to work full time on this project. Mike and the team raised over $900,000 in the months after the disaster, working with large corporate donors and setting up smaller events, including a 5 kilometre fun run that was carried out in 12 countries on the same day and raised over $100,000. The work was featured on the ITV ‘Tonight’ documentary news program, and in national papers. After giving a talk at TEDxTokyo and returning to the UK to study the alternative care system in Japan, Mike was invited by the Japanese Ambassador to meet and talk with the Emperor and Empress of Japan along with other Brits, including Lord Patten, who had been involved in the relief work.

• Mike is going to speak about fundraising strategies and will suggest (at least) three concrete ideas for fundraising that can be done before the end of term. These can be used for any charity fundraising, however the focus will be on post disaster, specifically on the situation in Nepal.

• The meeting aims to form a small team who can work on a flash fundraising event before the end of term, though you do not have to participate further if you just want to listen to the talk and learn more about fundraising.

To Book a place, click ‘going’ on our Facebook Event https://www.facebook.com/events/467192280115835/

OxFund — the Crowdfunding Society for Oxford Students
Email: hello.oxfund@gmail.com
Website: http://oxfund.wix.com/oxfund
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/OxFund/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OxFund
Fund OxFund to run events: https://hubbub.net/p/oxfundsociety/

Reuters Institute seminars “The business and practice of journalism”
The following seminars will be given at 2pm on Wednesdays, normally in the Barclay Room, Green Templeton College.
Convenors: James Painter, David Levy

Speaker: Brigitte Alfter, journalist, lecturer and author of handbook on cross-border journalism