by Magdalena Bas Vilizzio, 2015-2016 President Néstor Kirchner Fellow
The PNK Fellowship was a unique opportunity, in a personal and a professional level, to discuss topics of major importance to Uruguay and the South American States with professors of The New School, Brooklyn Law School, Columbia University and Universidad Nacional de San Martín, as well as students and civil society. The possibility of listening to different views of investor-State dispute settlement, the recently released text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the disputes involving the States of the region and the implications to other areas, such as human rights, was specially enriching. These contributions gave me tools to complete my research and new ideas to teach my students at the Universidad de la República (Uruguay).
Additionally, the possibility of lecturing in the Orozco Room (The New School) was a great experience. Arts, as a way to interpret reality which appeals to sensitivity and reflection, provided an ideal setting for the presentation of the first results of my research to an audience that showed interested in the facts and concerns of our continent.
To sum up, this experience motives to continue working in topics that interest the region and to accomplish the responsibility to contribute from the academia, to a necessary public discussion about the development model we wish for our countries.
Montevideo, Uruguay, November 2015
+ Find out more on Magdalena Bas Vilizzio’s PNK fellow experience in New York
