The Blue Earth, from the Poles, through the Law
“There isn’t a night without a dawn.”
The 14th Polar Law Symposium 2021
November 21-23
Thank you for your Participation.
Co-hosted by Polar Cooperation Research Centre (Kobe University, Japan),
Polar Law Institute (University of Akureyri, Iceland), the Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law
– Arctic Centre (University of Lapland, Finland), the University of the Arctic and its Arctic Law Thematic Network (Finland)
Themes and Events
The 14th Polar Law Symposium is under a poetic theme of “The Blue Earth, from the Poles, through the Law”, with a healing conference theme song
or “The Blue Earth”
,
its lyrics by Takashi Matsumoto living in Kobe and its song by a popular Japanese singer, Seiko Matsuda.
The force of law and the resilience of polar law community despite the current difficulties are depicted by a Japanese calligraphy 
meaning “the poles”.
You can download the Final Official Program and the list of presentations from here. .
November 21, 10:00 Entrance Open; 10:30-11:00 JST
Opening
Hiroshi Ueta,
Calligrapher from Kyoto
Live video showing of The Making of Symposium’ Symbol Calligraphy “極”
Yukiko Kurokami,
Opera singer, a graduate of Kobe University (MA)
Live performance on the Symposium Theme Song: The Blue Earth “瑠璃色の地球”
with the beautiful song and music. Click the image to the right.
November 21, 11:00-12:15 JST
The polar governance under the Anthropocene: The case of ocean acidification
Tim Stephens, Professor of International Law, University of Sydney
Naomi Harada, Director-General of the Research Institute for Global Change, JAMSTEC
Ocean acidification is a global challenge under the Anthropocene. What is the current scientific knowledge on the problem and the available governance schemes to tackle it? More importantly, how can the polar scholars, both scientists and lawyers, contribute to address this challenge in the future. The two world’s leading scholars in the fields will discuss the “case for polar leadership” to address this global challenge.
November 22, 16:30-18:30 JST
Country Visits: Ainu and the Arctic, followed by panel discussion
Gudmundur Alfredsson, Senior Associate, The Stefansson Arctic Institute, Akureyri, Iceland
In 1991, United Nations fact-finding mission visited the Ainu, Professor Alfredsson as one of its members. He will reflect on the visit and its impacts on the promotion of the Ainu’s rights under international human rights law. Kamrul Hossain, Kanako Uzawa (Ainu scholar), and Fumiya Nagai will discuss the legal, indigenous, and social implication of the protection and promotion of Indigenous People’s rights by looking at Japan and the Arctic countries.
November 23, 9:00-10:30 JST
Polar ocean governance through the two marine ecosystem/fisheries agreements
Joji Morishita, Professor, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology
Evan T. Bloom, Senior Fellow, Wilson Center, United States of America
Polar ocean ecosystems and fisheries are now governed by two important legally binding treaties: 1980 Convention for Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and 2018 Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean. They both address fragile ecosystems of the polar waters and yet face distinct governance challenges. Two experts with extensive diplomatic and negotiation experiences will discuss those challenges and provide insights for their future directions.
Commentators:
Angela Wang, Policy researcher, Asian Pacific Foundation, Canada
Lynda Goldsworthy, Ph.D. candidate, IMAS, University of Tasmania, Australia
November 23, 11:00-12:30 JST
Japanese industries in the Arctic (In Japanese, with simultaneous interpretation into English)
Daisuke Harada, Project Director, Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC)
Kota Ueki, Logistics Manager, JGC Corporation
Kota Okada, General Manager, LNG Project Team (B), LNG Carrier Division, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd.
How do Japanese industries see the business opportunities in the Arctic, contributing at the same time to the sustainable development of the Arctic countries and the peoples, including the Arctic Indigenous Peoples? Three experts from Japanese industry sector will discuss the upstream development in the Arctic region, businesses opportunities in the Arctic, and the current practices and future prospects for the utilization of the Northern Sea Route specifically focusing on LNG development. The aim of this session is to consider how it will be possible to realize sustainable use of resources in the Arctic by industries and their potential contribution to the Arctic governance. It may give suggestions to the assessment of the applicable international legal standards and their implementation to identify key issues for sustainable development and discuss the methods to make sustainability more achievable.
November 23, 17:00-18:30 JST
Polar governance for the Blue Earth: Messages from biodiversity COP15 and climate COP26
Nengye Liu, Associate Professor, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Hitomi Kimura, Associate Professor, Otsuma Women’s University
The 14th Polar Law Symposium will be held just after the convening of the two milestone meetings on global environmental governance: COP15 of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in October, in Kunming, China and COP26 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in November, in Glasgow, United Kingdom. This session will discuss the messages from CBD-COP15 and UNFCCC-COP26 to polar governance for the future of our planet, the Blue Earth.
November 18-19, 2021
The Global Antarctic: Humanities and Social Sciences (SC-HASS) biennial conference
Kobe PCRC is also hosting the 2021 Biennial Conference of the Standing Committee for Humanities and Social Sciences (SC-HASS) under Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) on 18-19 November 2021.
SC-HASS is a community of researchers working on diverse aspects of the humanities and social sciences as they relate to Antarctica.
SC-HASS has also decided to waive registration fees, so do please register and enjoy the Antarctic-specific presentations.
ANNOUNCEMENT ON YEARBOOK OF POLAR LAW
The convenor of 14 PLS would encourage you to have your presentation(s) published as a fully-reviewed paper in The Yearbook of Polar Law Vol. 14. To enable the smooth and timely preparation of the Yearbook, please observe the following instructions. More details will be available from the Special Editor.
- Prepare a Word document of no more than 8,000 words (including footnotes).
- Authors should write in English only.
- Use the Chicago Footnotes style. Do not use Endnotes.
- The deadline for submission for papers is 15 February 2022.
- All inquires regarding the Yearbook and the submission should be addressed to the Special Editors: Akiho Shibata and Yelena Yermakova, at 14ypleditors[at]gmail.com.
Registration
- There is no fee for registration. For the Live Presentation Program as of 11 November, please click here (no longer active). .
- Registration is required for all presenters and general participants in order to access the symposium's Online Participant Portal and the venue at Kobe University.
- For the first phase of the registration, you will need to enter your personal profile and your participation category: Representative Presenter (see below), Presenter (live or pre-recorded) , Chair and/or General Participant, as well as your expected date of onsite visit to the venue. Please refer to the Participation/Presentation Manual ver.2.0 for other details.
Important notice for Representative Presenters:
- A Representative Presenter is the one with an accepted abstract and being the one who received the acceptance notification from the Symposium Secretariat. Please refer to the “Comprehensive list of all accepted abstracts” for the names and the abstract entry number of those Representative Presenters.
- The second phase starting from 11 October will require the Representative Presenters to provide information on the final title of the presentation/panel, co-authors, co-panelists, and/or sub-titles of those panel presentations as applicable. Those information will be used for producing an official Symposium Online program.
- The third phase starting from 1 November until 15 November is for the Representative Presenters with pre-recorded presentations to upload all relevant presentation material relating to the accepted abstract under his/her authority. You can replace them during this period. For live presentations, AFTER your live presentations, you MAY upload your presentation material which will be available for on-demand viewing on the Online Portal. For technical details, please refer to the updated Manual version 2.0.
What do you expect from a hybrid conference?
The hybrid conference will consist of several live sessions broadcast live using the dedicated Online Participant Portal, in which presenters being both at the physical venue at Kobe University and through ZOOM online and simultaneously interacting with the audience both at the venue and via online. Those live events will be broadcast using two parallel online channels over the three days of the Symposium and will be video-recorded for later on-demand viewing and in-text commenting on the Online Participant Portal until 8 December 2021.
There will also be several powerpoint and video presentations uploaded onto the Online Participant Portal which are available for on-demand viewing and in-text commenting and feedbacks, starting from the conference opening on 21 November until 8 December 2021.
For those intending to participate in-person at the venue, the conference venue is a large hall with capacity of 350+, in which we expect a maximum of 50 in-person participants. All preventive measures are implemented at the venue. For access to the venue at Kobe University, please click here.
For those participants currently living outside of Japan, it is their voluntary choice whether to try to enter Japan and participate in the Symposium in-person at the venue or to stay home and make an online live presentation/participation using ZOOM. Please regularly check the Japanese immigration and quarantine rules regarding COVID-19: <www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/covid-19/bordercontrol.html>. Please note the organizer will not support procedurally (producing special documents for your entry, etc), logistically (finding transportation and accommodation during the quarantine period, etc), or financially (paying for testing fees and isolation-related costs, etc) for those trying to enter Japan for this conference.
Kobe City MICE Promotion
"Incentive Tours"
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