ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳

*Schedule of events subject to change. 

8:00 AM ¨C 9:00 AM ET | Registration, Networking & Breakfast

Entrance is on 1818 H St NW, Washington, DC. Participants will be requested to proceed through a security screening to enter the venue.  

9:00 AM ¨C 10:00 AM ET | The Invisible Infrastructure: A Discussion on the Evolving Legal Landscape in Development

The rule of law is the "invisible infrastructure" for development: existing as policy, frameworks, and regulations, the law can shape, enable, and unlock the potenial of development investments and projects, which in turn can profoundly impact and improve peoples' lives. In this scene-setting discussion for LJD Week 2025, join Christopher Stephens, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Group, to reflect on how legal innovations can support the reforms needed to address today's complex and evolving development challenges.  

10:00 AM ¨C 10:20 AM ET | Networking & Coffee Break

10:20 AM ¨C 11:20 AM ET | Working Better Together: Full Mutual Reliance and the Future of MDB Collaboration

This session will explore the groundbreaking Full Mutual Reliance Framework between the Asian Development Bank and the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳. It will discuss how innovative partnerships can strengthen collaboration among Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and support development objectives more effectively while advancing the efficiency agenda.

11:30 ¨C 12:30 ET | Rethinking Legal Protections for a Livable Planet: Case Studies on Innovative Approaches to Remedy Environmental Crimes

This session will explore innovative legal strategies to protect the environment through prevention, sanction, and reparation, drawing on real-world case studies. Experts from different legal systems will share tools and insights to strengthen environmental justice, offering actionable knowledge and practical approaches to better integrate environmental protection into legal systems. 

12:30 PM ¨C 1:45 PM | Networking & Lunch

12:30 PM ¨C 1:45 PM | Lunch Session: Association of Lawyers in Intergovernmental Finance and Development Organizations (ALIFDO)

1:45 PM ¨C 3:00 PM ET | Deans of Law Faculties Dialogue

This session will feature a high-level discussion among the deans of leading law schools from around the world on actionable reforms in legal education aimed at broadening access to law and justice globally and preparing future lawyers to navigate the challenges of a rapidly evolving global legal profession.

1:45 PM ¨C 3:00 PM ET | Legal Aspects of Using AI in Operations: MDB Experience and Lessons Learned

This session will raise awareness and share experiences of how Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) legal departments are applying novel legal solutions to a number of AI use cases in both internal administration and in Bank- and Recipient-executed operations.????

1:45 PM ¨C 3:00 PM ET | Digital Innovation in Preventive Justice: Secure Property Rights & Access to Justice

This session will look at the opportunities and challenges for digital solutions in the preventive administration of justice in developing countries through four practical examples from Benin, Brazil, Indonesia, and Italy. It will spotlight the evolving role of legal practitioners in enhancing land tenure, access to justice, and economic development. With the digital age transforming legal landscapes, technology can make legal systems more efficient and accessible.

3:00 PM ¨C 3:15 PM ET | Networking & Coffee Break

3:15 PM ¨C 5:00 PM ET | Domestic Resource Mobilization: Tools for an Enabling Regulatory Environment

This session will begin with an introduction of the Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development's Champion Projects. 

This main session will use the Africa Tax Legislation Atlas as a case study for how accessible legal data can strengthen tax systems and governance worldwide. Learn actionable strategies for leveraging legal transparency and comparative analysis to improve tax administration, as well as a clearer understanding of the growing role of legal practitioners in driving effective regulatory reform to improve domestic resource mobilization.

5:00 PM ¨C 5:05 PM ET | End of Day Announcements

8:00 AM ¨C 9:00 AM ET | Networking & Breakfast

9:10 AM ¨C 10:15 AM ET | Between Reality and Mandate: The Role of International Financial Institutions in Shaping International Development Law

The session will explore how IFIs¡¯ legal frameworks have enabled these institutions to respond to emerging global challenges and propose new legal solutions to advance their mandates in response to today¡¯s fast-evolving demands. The discussion will focus on the relevance of IFIs in the current geopolitical context, provide actionable measures to fill any existing mandate gaps, and promote the international development law agenda.

10:15 AM ¨C 10:40 AM ET | Networking & Coffee Break

10:40 AM ¨C 11:40 AM ET | CIF Capital Markets Mechanism: Using Securitization to Leverage Donor Capital for Climate Finance

As country resources face increasing constraints, diversifying sources of financing for development is a critical challenge. This session will look at how prioritizing private capital mobilization may be among the solutions, but one with challenges for how to structure capital market fund raising approaches suited to the private sector. Lawyers play a crucial role to design innovative solutions that can unlock options for raising capital funds for development. 

10:40 AM ¨C 11:40 AM ET | Law and Data: Leveraging Legal Indicators as an Innovative Tool for Development

This session will discuss the future of legal indicators as a strategic tool for economic and legal development. It will evaluate the robustness of legal indicators, focusing on methodological challenges, uses cases and interoperability, potential improvements, and how these indicators can be used more effectively by businesses, investors, and governments to foster economic development. This session will also introduce the World Observatory on Legal Indicators (WOLI) - ¡®the indicator of indicators¡¯ - its objectives and its call for global collaboration.

10:40 AM ¨C 11:40 AM ET | Leveraging National Legal Frameworks for a Just Transition

This session will unpack the findings of the new GFLJD Environmental Justice Working Group report on the main elements of a national legal framework for just transition across sectors. The report provides recommendations on embedding just transition principles into national legal frameworks and highlights their relevance to the operations of development institutions.

11:45 AM ¨C 12:30 PM ET | Legal Bolts: Bright Insights on Development Impact

• Legal Innovation for a Data-Driven World - the LEG Approach: As the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ evolves towards more innovative forms of engagement to support knowledge, cross-border solutions, and global public goods, development work increasingly involves legal questions tied to digitalization¡ªsuch as data protection, intellectual property, and AI governance. This session will highlight how LEG works directly with project teams throughout the product cycle to enable legal pathways that allow new types of operations to proceed within the Bank¡¯s legal and institutional framework. 
• Leveraging B-READY Data for Innovative Legal Solutions in the Private Sector: This talk will explore how the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳¡¯s Business Ready (B-READY) report serves as a benchmark for the private sector, assessing digitalization and its regulation to enhance public services, and operational efficiency. Covering 400+ digital adoption variables across 100+ economies, the report provides key insights into digital adoption by governments and businesses. The discussion will highlight how digital transformation fosters a more business-friendly environment and drives private sector innovation, including the AI uptake.  
• The Intersection of Technology and Citizen Participation in Combatting Corruption: This talk will highlight the ABA¡¯s Center for Global Programs Pilot Anti-Corruption Mechanism Program in El Salvador, which collaborated with the Governmental Ethics Tribunal to provide Salvadorans with an online corruption complaint platform.?Learn how leveraging technological solutions and social media help generate citizen participation in denouncing corruption, and hear best practices in agile management of rule of law development programs. 

12:30 PM ¨C 1:45 PM | Networking & Lunch

12:30 PM ¨C 1:45 PM ET | Lunch Session: Digital Solutions for Climate-Smart Cities: The Law and Climate Change Toolkit

This session will demonstrate the impact of the UN-Habitat Urban Law Module, an interactive digital tool that helps governments assess and reform legal frameworks for climate resilience, and showcase UN-Habitat¡¯s e-learning course on integrating climate action into urban law to create cohesive multi-sectoral approaches and multi-level governance models for coordinated climate action. Both tools demonstrate the impact and importance of using urban law for resilient, sustainable, and inclusive low-carbon urban development.?

1:45 PM ¨C 3:00 PM ET | Leveraging the Law for Women¡¯s Economic Opportunity

This session will explore how the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳¡¯s (WBL) data on barriers and enablers to women¡¯s economic opportunity have provided the evidence base for legal and policy reform that aim to increase women¡¯s economic participation and global economic growth. It will highlight success stories how WBL data informed ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ operations in Sierra Leone, Azerbaijan, and Egypt that created new economic opportunities for women. Attendees will learn how they can use their legal expertise to inform WBL data and advance women¡¯s access to jobs. 

1:45 PM ¨C 3:00 PM ET | Development and Human Rights: Innovative Approaches in a Challenging Landscape

The session focuses on integrating human rights into development practices to achieve sustainable outcomes, especially in the context of global crises. It will showcase innovative legal solutions, promoting transparency and inclusion, while sharing insights into placing human rights at the core of development efforts and learning from development actors¡¯ experience in creating strategies for navigating constraints and complex challenges.

1:45 PM ¨C 3:00 PM ET | Legal Innovations in Response to Global Mineral Sector Challenges (Workshop)

This expert-led workshop invites mining sector legal professionals to explore innovative legal reforms shaping the global mineral sector through presentations and interactive exercises. The focus is on adapting legislation for strategic minerals and enabling investment while balancing environmental and social interests. Key takeaways include practical strategies for mining law reform and the essential role of legal practitioners in sector development.

3:00 PM ¨C 3:15 PM ET | Networking & Coffee Break

3:15 PM ¨C 3:55 PM ET | Legal Briefs: Short Talks on Legal Innovations

• The Dataset of World Refugee and Asylum Policies: The talk will introduce and describe the Dataset of World Refugee and Asylum Policies (DWRAP), an innovative tool that codifies de jure asylum and refugee provisions for 193 countries from 1951-2022 into simple, quantitative, indicators. It will illustrate the content of the dataset, and will showcase the DWRAP platform, a user-friendly tool developed for making the dataset accessible by a large audience of non-technical stakeholders to use the dataset to inform their activities on refugee and asylum seekers policies.  
• Democratizing Legal AI - a Model for More Efficient and Accessible Justice: This talk will highlight the Paris Bar Association¡¯s groundbreaking initiative to provide free AI-powered tools to over 14,000 lawyers for 15 months, promoting equality and efficiency in legal services. It will explore how legal AI can support sustainable development, bridge technological divides, and inspire similar innovation globally. 

3:15 PM ¨C 3:55 PM ET | Emerging Patterns in Women¡¯s Legal Aid Support

This session will launch the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Legal Vice Presidency's first pilot assessment on Legal Aid for Women, spanning nine countries and offering data-driven insights for reform. It will spotlight the structural barriers women face in accessing justice and the innovative solutions making a difference. Participants will discover how legal aid systems can become more responsive, inclusive, and impactful for women worldwide.

4:00 PM ¨C 5:00 PM ET | Alternative Dispute Resolution Solutions to Address 21st Century Development Challenges in Asia and the Pacific

International alternative dispute resolution (IADR) could be a game changer for emerging markets and developing economies, yet there are challenges to its widespread adoption. This session will discuss IADR as a critical tool in supporting sustainable economic development, the current state of IADR development focusing on the Asia and the Pacific region, and recommendations to tackle IADR issues to address emerging disputes in the 21st century.

4:00 PM ¨C 5:00 PM ET | Navigating the Legal Complexities of Sovereign Debt

This panel will explore innovative legal strategies for sovereign debt management, drawing from the African Legal Support Facility's experience, research, and tools. It will highlight how legal practitioners are essential to building financial resilience and sustainable borrowing practices across developing countries.

5:00 PM ¨C 5:05 PM ET | End of Day Announcements

8:00 AM ¨C 9:00 AM ET | Networking & Breakfast

9:00 AM ¨C 10:15 AM ET | Attorneys General and Ministers of Justice Roundtable: Regulatory Reform for Development

This session will bring together high-level officials from various countries to share and showcase their recent actions and priorities on domestic regulatory reforms. The session will provide a space for engagement and dialogue on the challenges countries have faced in different areas of governance and development, the approaches they have adopted, and the results and lessons learned.

10:15 AM ¨C 10:40 AM ET | Networking & Coffee Break

10:40 AM ¨C 11:40 AM ET | Accelerating International Asset Recovery for Sustainable Development

10:40 AM ¨C 11:40 AM ET | Innovative Legal Pathways to Unlock Agrifinance for Smallholder Farmers

10:40 AM ¨C 11:40 AM ET | Governing the Global Hydrological Cycle: Where Do We Stand

Building on the GFLJD Water Law Working Group¡¯s research to map and assess the global hydrological governance regime, this session will present the international and national regulatory frameworks that influence and shape the governance of the global hydrological cycle.

11:45 AM ¨C 12:30 PM ET | Legal Bolts: Bright Insights on Development Impact

• AI for Access to Law and Justice - Building Colombia¡¯s First Country-wide LLM: This talk will present Colombia's groundbreaking initiative to develop the country's first special-purpose LLM designed exclusively for legal information access and state services. This pioneering project demonstrates how academic-private partnerships can create scalable, replicable AI solutions that democratize access to justice in civil law jurisdictions. 
• Court Audio Recordings Project: Access to courts' digital records (oral arguments) enhances transparency, accountability, justice, the rule of law, and public trust. Using the South African Constitutional Court as the pilot, this talk will examine the feasibility of and share innovative options for creating a free digital audio to increase public access, highlighting strategies for collaboration among legal professionals, justice stakeholders, and higher educational institutions. 
• Enabling Community Monitoring of Disability Rights Using Text Analytics and LLMs: This talk will explore how GenAI and text analytics can empower communities to monitor implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Using a novel hybrid methodology, participants will learn global and regional trends¡ªwith a focus on legal recognition, access to justice, and employment¡ªand how to apply these tools to analyze treaty data relevant to their own contexts. 

12:30 PM ¨C 1:45 PM | Networking & Lunch

12:30 PM ¨C 1:45 PM ET | Lunch Session: Advancing Global Access to Law and Justice: Launch of the ALJ Working Group and Inaugural Stakeholder Dialogue

This session will formally launch the Access to Law and Justice Working Group (ALJ-WG) under the GFLJD and serve as the ALJ-WG¡¯s inaugural meeting, featuring an interactive, forward-looking dialogue with key stakeholders and development partners. It will focus on the ALJ-WG¡¯s key outputs, including its flagship knowledge product: the Lawyer¡¯s Cookbook on Access to Law and Justice.

1:45 PM ¨C 3:00 PM ET | Legal Innovation in Times of Crisis: General Counsel Roundtable

This session will bring together general counsels from various MDBs and IFIs to discuss the role of law, lawyers, and legal institutions in supporting innovative solutions to global development challenges, and how this role must evolve in politically complex, crisis-prone environments amid rapid technological advancements.

3:00 PM ¨C 3:20 PM ET | Networking & Coffee Break

3:20 PM ¨C 4:30 PM ET | The Evolving Role of Legal Practitioners in the Development Ecosystem

The LJD Week 2025 closing plenary session will provide a capstone discussion on the themes and ideas raised over the three-day program. The session will bring together views of on the evolvoing legal landscape in development and offer perspectives on the innovation and creativity, as well as the changing advisory role, that lawyers will need to bring to help unlock the full impact of development projects. 

4:30 PM ¨C 5:00 PM ET | Event Closing Remarks