2/5/13

Guest Post by Dr. Osama Siddique

LASSnet is a unique and highly pertinent forum both because it brings together invaluable multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives to the impact of law on South Asian societies and also because with this forum actually germinating from South Asia it has a vital organic feel to it that attracts a wide array of highly interesting and research active local scholars and activists. At the same time, it embraces valuable voices and perspectives on South Asia emerging from the international academy. Having unfortunately missed out on the first and second LASSnet conferences it was a privilege for me to attend the third event in Sri Lanka and it lived up to its well earned reputation. Many of the participants whom one had the opportunity to meet were very impressive and their lines of research invigorating. If one couples that with the fact that the University of Peradeniya has one of the most beautiful campuses that one has seen, the experience was truly memorable. The richness and fecundity of the surrounding botanical gardens were matched by the rigor and diversity of debate in the seminar rooms. LASSnet has emerged and is now established i as a significant forum for critical, free-thinking, non-statist perspectives on the complex and disparate operation of laws and regulations in the lives of South Asian citizens. Not only is its annual event now a 'must attend' for all serious scholars of South Asia but it also continues to provide a very valuable forum for formal and informal intellectual networking.
Dr. Osama Siddique
B.A (Punjab); M.B.A (LUMS); B.A (Hons)(Juris), M.A (Oxon); LL.M, S.J.D (Harvard)
Associate Professor –- Department of Law & Policy (LUMS), Pakistan