Qatar University (QU) recently launched the Centre for Law & Development within its College of Law (LAWC). The new centre will contribute to building awareness of laws in Qatar and promoting the exchange of ideas for policy development and implementation.
The new facility will provide clinical education and training programmes, especially to meet the needs of the Qatari society, and aimed at building national capacity in the field of law.
The centre currently runs two clinical legal education programmes – an Environmental Law Clinic on climate change and a Trade and Investment Law Clinic, both designed to provide students with the opportunity to work on live cases for real beneficiaries. The centre is also producing a wide range of publications relevant to legal areas of national economic and environmental development, such as financial regulation, energy, and environmental protection.
The centre will conduct research projects in areas of interdisciplinary law and policy which will contribute to promoting national economic growth in a sustainable manner as required by Qatar’s Permanent Constitution and National Development Strategy. The centre currently manages two research projects funded by the Qatar National Priorities Research Programme and designed to build legal capacity in Qatar.
The projects are “Legal Innovation to Empower Development: Designing and Building an Online “TradeLab” in Qatar” (Trade and Investment Legal Advisory Broker) and “Legal Education and the Skills Market in Qatar”. It also runs a range of other research grants related to Qatar’s environmental law, climate change, legal education in Qatar, and Islamic finance. Collectively, it manages grants worth over $1.5mn.
The centre includes two divisions: an Energy and Environmental Division and an Economic Development Division.
The Energy and Environmental Division seeks to build community awareness of and promote the dissemination of timely and neutral information related to climate and energy challenges while partnering with established multi-stakeholder initiatives to better educate regional consumers and encourage regional businesses to reduce their energy use and carbon footprints.
The Economic Development Division seeks to promote efficiency, accessibility, fairness, transparency, and stability of domestic and global financial systems, and stands out as the focal point of financial centres in the region.
LAWC dean Dr Mohamed bin Abdulaziz al-Khulaifi said, “We are focusing on developing infrastructure, as well as increasing our research outcomes and the number of training programmes to achieve our strategic goals and contribute to realising the objectives of Qatar National Vision 2030. The Centre for Law & Development is one of those efforts. The Centre will provide research covering many areas of interest that are important to the Qatari society and aimed to achieve Qatar’s sustainable model for economic and human development.”