Welcome, dear polar law scholars, indigenous representatives, polar policy-makers, polar stakeholders, and participants.
My name is Akiho Shibata, professor of international law, and Director, Kobe University Polar Cooperation Research Centre. I am the Convenor of the 13th Polar Law Symposium. On behalf of the three Co-Hosts of the Symposium, I would like to warmly welcome all of you to the 13th Polar Law Symposium Special Online Session. This is the first virtual Polar Law Symposium in its 13-years of history. I appreciate very much the guidance the Advisory Committee members provided for this epoch-making event to succeed.
Despite the continuing difficulties around the world caused by COVID-19, it is my great pleasure to inform you that today, on 9 November 2020, the 13th Polar Law Symposium has successfully opened entirely online, with a total of 288 registered participants. This is the largest registration number ever achieved in the history of the Symposium. As of today, we have 25 uploaded individual presentations either by slideshows or by video viewing, five (5) seminars for on-demand video viewing, and 13 live events planned with 28 oral interactive presentations and lectures. In this context, I would like to thank the members of the Planning Committee in organizing six (6) interesting Discussion Panels and the early-career and indigenous scholars as fellows assisting those Panels. Please note that for the live events, all participants will need to separately pre-register for the particular event they want to attend, 5 days before the event, from the Symposium website.
A virtual symposium definitely contributes to the reduction of our carbon footprint of international travels; at the same time, there has been a long and arduous preparatory work on the technicalities of the online systems and website, with not so much reduced financial costs. I would like to thank the members of Kobe PCRC team for logistically supporting all the things we are doing online, behind the scene. I would also like to thank the generous financial and other supports from our Co-Sponsors: National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR), Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) for KAKENHI, Kobe University Rokkodai Foundation, The Mitsui & Co. Environment Fund, Arctic Challenge for Sustainability II (ArCS II), and Kobe University Center for Social System Innovation (KUSSI).
It is my sincere wish that this Symposium gives you a little bit of extra energy to keep you going with your academic work in these difficult times.
Please enjoy all the presentations and live events during the Symposium, until 30th November. Thank you, and welcome again.
At the occasion of the final live event of the Symposium on 26 November:
Dear participants, welcome again to the final live event of the 13th Polar Law Symposium, the live open lecture on “Plastic Arctic- How does law deal with the emerging threat of Arctic plastic pollution”. This lecture is under the Discussion Panel on Emerging Legal Issues in Protecting the Arctic Environment, and co-sponsored by two research programs under the new Japanese flagship Arctic project, ArCS II: namely the Research Program on International Law studies and the Research Program on Ocean Studies.
My name is Akiho Shibata, professor of international law at Kobe University and the Principal Investigator of the ArCS II Research Program on International Law, and I will serve as a moderator for today’s event.
Before going into today’s event, and since this is the last live event of the symposium, on behalf of the three co-hosts of this Symposium, I, as the Convenor of the 13th Polar Law Symposium, would like to express my sincere gratitude to all those polar scholars who have shown our solidarity and the determination against the pandemic to continue our polar law and policy studies, despite the very difficult situations caused by the virus.
With only four days to go, we have 350 registered participants, with 43 uploaded individual presentations either by slideshows or by video viewing, 12 live events successfully convened with 28 oral interactive presentations and lectures, including today’s event. Almost all live events by now provide on-demand video viewing for those participants who missed the events, most probably because of the difficult time zones. We counted 538 YouTube views on those on-demand video viewing, which, I think, is still too small to get a ranking.
So, please do not forget to access the website again, observe all the presentations, and leave your constructive comments for the authors. All these presentations are available only until 30th of November, that is next Monday. Thereafter, because of the agreement with the authors and the publishing company, they will be deleted from the website at mid-night Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of 30 November.
Comment Archives
Welcome message in texts:
Welcome, dear polar law scholars, indigenous representatives, polar policy-makers, polar stakeholders, and participants.
My name is Akiho Shibata, professor of international law, and Director, Kobe University Polar Cooperation Research Centre. I am the Convenor of the 13th Polar Law Symposium. On behalf of the three Co-Hosts of the Symposium, I would like to warmly welcome all of you to the 13th Polar Law Symposium Special Online Session. This is the first virtual Polar Law Symposium in its 13-years of history. I appreciate very much the guidance the Advisory Committee members provided for this epoch-making event to succeed.
Despite the continuing difficulties around the world caused by COVID-19, it is my great pleasure to inform you that today, on 9 November 2020, the 13th Polar Law Symposium has successfully opened entirely online, with a total of 288 registered participants. This is the largest registration number ever achieved in the history of the Symposium. As of today, we have 25 uploaded individual presentations either by slideshows or by video viewing, five (5) seminars for on-demand video viewing, and 13 live events planned with 28 oral interactive presentations and lectures. In this context, I would like to thank the members of the Planning Committee in organizing six (6) interesting Discussion Panels and the early-career and indigenous scholars as fellows assisting those Panels. Please note that for the live events, all participants will need to separately pre-register for the particular event they want to attend, 5 days before the event, from the Symposium website.
A virtual symposium definitely contributes to the reduction of our carbon footprint of international travels; at the same time, there has been a long and arduous preparatory work on the technicalities of the online systems and website, with not so much reduced financial costs. I would like to thank the members of Kobe PCRC team for logistically supporting all the things we are doing online, behind the scene. I would also like to thank the generous financial and other supports from our Co-Sponsors: National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR), Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) for KAKENHI, Kobe University Rokkodai Foundation, The Mitsui & Co. Environment Fund, Arctic Challenge for Sustainability II (ArCS II), and Kobe University Center for Social System Innovation (KUSSI).
It is my sincere wish that this Symposium gives you a little bit of extra energy to keep you going with your academic work in these difficult times.
Please enjoy all the presentations and live events during the Symposium, until 30th November. Thank you, and welcome again.
9 November 2020
At the occasion of the final live event of the Symposium on 26 November:
Dear participants, welcome again to the final live event of the 13th Polar Law Symposium, the live open lecture on “Plastic Arctic- How does law deal with the emerging threat of Arctic plastic pollution”. This lecture is under the Discussion Panel on Emerging Legal Issues in Protecting the Arctic Environment, and co-sponsored by two research programs under the new Japanese flagship Arctic project, ArCS II: namely the Research Program on International Law studies and the Research Program on Ocean Studies.
My name is Akiho Shibata, professor of international law at Kobe University and the Principal Investigator of the ArCS II Research Program on International Law, and I will serve as a moderator for today’s event.
Before going into today’s event, and since this is the last live event of the symposium, on behalf of the three co-hosts of this Symposium, I, as the Convenor of the 13th Polar Law Symposium, would like to express my sincere gratitude to all those polar scholars who have shown our solidarity and the determination against the pandemic to continue our polar law and policy studies, despite the very difficult situations caused by the virus.
With only four days to go, we have 350 registered participants, with 43 uploaded individual presentations either by slideshows or by video viewing, 12 live events successfully convened with 28 oral interactive presentations and lectures, including today’s event. Almost all live events by now provide on-demand video viewing for those participants who missed the events, most probably because of the difficult time zones. We counted 538 YouTube views on those on-demand video viewing, which, I think, is still too small to get a ranking.
So, please do not forget to access the website again, observe all the presentations, and leave your constructive comments for the authors. All these presentations are available only until 30th of November, that is next Monday. Thereafter, because of the agreement with the authors and the publishing company, they will be deleted from the website at mid-night Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of 30 November.
Thank you.
Excellent symposium that has allowed discussion in spite of the physical distance of the participants