Professor Stephen Vasciannie, principal of the Norman Manley Law School, will deliver the eighth annual Michael Manley Lecture, on 'Jamaica and the World: Issues of International Law'.

The lecture will be staged by the Michael Manley Foundation, in association with the Office of the Michael Manley Professor of Public Policy, University of the West Indies (UWI), in the Executive Lecture Theatre, Sir Alister McIntyre Building, on the UWI Mona campus, on Thursday, December 10, at 1 p.m.

The Michael Manley Lecture is one of three annual events organised by the Michael Manley Foundation, incorporated in 1999 to preserve and promote the intellectual, political and philosophical legacy of the late former prime minister. It is presented each year on December 10, the anniversary of Manley's birth.

Free admission

The lecture is open to the public. Admission is free and dress casual.

Professor Vasciannie has had a distinguished career as scholar, lawyer and public servant in Jamaica and overseas. A Jamaican Rhodes Scholar, he launched his academic career with a run of three consecutive first-class honours degrees - the BSc (economics) at the UWI in 1981, the BA in jurisprudence at Oxford University in 1983, and the LLM in international law at Cambridge University, in 1984 - before completing his PhD in international law at Oxford University, in 1989. He won several prizes for academic achievement at UWI, Oxford and Cambridge. He was called to the New York bar in 1990 and to the Jamaican bar in 1996.

Professor Vasciannie is a member of the United Nations International Law Commission, President of the Conference on Maritime Delimitation of the Caribbean Sea, and editor of the West Indian Law Journal. He is chairman of the board of Scotia DBG and a member of the board of the Bank of Nova Scotia Jamaica Ltd and various related boards. He has been professor of international law at the UWI since 1994.

He is a former chairman of the Air Policy Committee of the Jamaican Government, deputy solicitor-general, head of the UWI Department of Government, member of the Inter-American Juridical Committee of the Organisation of American States, research fellow in international law at St Catharine's College, Cambridge University, and legal advisor to the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations.

He has represented Jamaica in various international negotiations and has been consultant to the United Nations Development Programme, the Caribbean Community, the Planning Institute of Jamaica, and the Commonwealth Secretariat, among others

Professor Vasciannie is the author of four books, monographs, more than 40 articles in law journals and book chapters mainly on international law issues. He has also written more than 600 newspaper columns on a wide range of public affairs.

vasciannie