The Long Institute co-organizes an academic conference in Indonesia, hosted by Diponegoro University in Semarang, Indonesia. The conference is about Regulation, Power and Legal Empowerment. It brings together a host of the world’s leading scholars and practitioners in the field of law and development and international legal development cooperation.

During the two day conference two key topics will be discussed. First is how regulation and access to justice and legal empowerment are related. This topic looks at the conditions under which societal actors can act in regulatory capacities, as well as how regulation can function in a way that it empowers local populations. Second, the conference discusses how power imbalances are related to access to justice how legal empowerment activities can help to deal with them.

During the conference findings from 4 major research projects conducted in Indonesia and China on legal empowerment of pollution victims will be presented. This research has been coordinated and led by Long Institute director Benjamin van Rooij. It has been funded by a generous grant by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. The research is a collaboration between UC Irvine, Amsterdam University, Leiden University, the Chinese University of Politics and Law, Wuhan University, the University of North Sumatra and Diponegoro University.