On September 18 (Thu) the 2014 IAL-KLRI International Conference was held in Seoul, Korea under the themeInnovation of Legislative Processes.

The 2014 IAL-KLRI International Conference welcomed 143 participants from 17 countries, including 10 invited speakers, 8 discussants, 1 facilitator and 1 moderator, who all helped make the Conference truly international and made it into a big success.

All of the speakers and discussants provided a truly worldwide view on recent innovations in legislative processes. Keynote speakers Kealy and Arnold-Moore provided global insights in the use of ICT in legislative processes and the way it has affected legislation. Professor Kealy from Boston University had even conducted a survey in all of the states of the USA in search of attitudes as regards ICT in legislative drafting offices. It would go too far here to discuss all the different contributions – the conference proceedings to be published in the upcoming year will give a full account.

The 2014 IAL-KLRI Interenational Conference – which was proceeded by a meeting and conference of the Asia Legal Information Network (ALIN) – was, in the warm words of President Lee Won of KLRI: ‘a great opportunity for all participants to develop new ideas for current and future studies about legislation.’ IAL is committed to extend its network and cooperate with ALIN in the near future through the mediation of KLRI.

The Members and Board of the IAL are deeply grateful for the splendid conference KLRI has organized and the warm hospitality that was extended. We do hope that we can continue and elaborate our cooperation with KLRI.

President Lee Won of KLRI in his heartwarming message of 1 October wrote:

“Even if this conference ends, the KLRI and IAL will strive to continue our efforts in strengthening the networking among specialists all over the world for the common goal that we all share; finding the best legislative processes to our society.”

We as an Association thank him for these kind words and with him his staff and we do endorse the commitment he expresses.

A second step in 2015

The search for innovations in legislative processes has not ended yet. As a result of the two-step approach we took to the 11th bi-annual conference of IAL we will meet in 12 March 2015 in Stockholm Sweden to deal with the second part, dedicated to the theme of ‘Crowdsourcing as a new way to engage the general public in legislation’.

More details on this upcoming event will be announced shortly. 

We hope to meet all of you there again!

Wim Voermans, President of IAL