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**Apologies for cross-posting** *2016 Social Policy Association Annual Conference* *Belfast Metropolitan College, Titanic Quarter, Belfast* *4th-6th July 2016* *Conference Theme: ‘_Social Policy: Radical, Resistant, Resolute_’*.** *Symposium: The transnational judicialisation of social policy*** *Call for papers* The aim of the symposium is to explore the increasing significance of transnational courts and processes of judicialisation for social policy and related areas of public policy. By transnational judicialisation, we mean processes where decision making authority and jurisdiction lies with courts and/or legal actors that stand ‘above’ or ‘outside’ of nation states. These include legal processes created by trade and investment agreements, such as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) processes and the World Trade Organisation’s dispute settlement process, as well as world-regional legal systems such as that of the European Court of Justice within the European Union (EU). Although these processes have attracted significant attention in other fields of the social sciences, they have done less so within social policy. The symposium therefore aims to contribute towards filling this gap through the exploration of how transnational courts and processes of judicialisation are increasingly redrafting and rescaling power asymmetries for actors (such as individuals, collective actors, small-medium enterprises, governments, multinational corporations)and locales (nation states, international markets). The role of transnational legal processes has become increasingly important for the governance of transnational market integration in emerging(e.g. Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and existing (North American Free Trade Agreement) trade agreements, as well as for the expansion of internal markets within transnational regional entities (e.g. the European labour market within the EU). In doing so, transnational courts are increasingly called to resolve disputes between public and private law, social and market rights, sovereign national governments and multinational corporations (e.g. Canada vs Eli Lily, Australia vs Philip Morris). The challenges that arise from these processes are at least twofold. First, they undermine the traditional capacity of nation states to exercise their sovereignty over key areas of social and public policy such as taxation, health and labour law. Second, and relatedly, they raise questions concerning democracy and accountability, as private or otherwise unaccountable actors increasingly take precedence over democratically elected representatives. We invite papers that address these questions as they relate to any transnational judicial process affecting any area of social policy or related public policy, for one or more symposia to be submitted to the 2016 SPA conference. Please send a title and abstract of 200-400 words to Chris Holden ([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>) and Antonios Roumpakis ([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>) to express your interest in participating. The deadline for expressions of interest is *February 29^th *. Best regards, Chris and Antonios -- Dr Antonis Roumpakis Lecturer in Comparative Social Policy Deputy Director of Graduate School Department of Social Policy & Social Work University of York YO10 5DD Tel: 01904 32 1298 http://www.york.ac.uk/spsw/staff/antonios-roumpakis/ -- Email disclaimer: http://www.york.ac.uk/docs/disclaimer/email.htm ***** This email came through the mailinglist of the Critical Political Economy Research Network of the European Sociological Association http://criticalpoliticaleconomy.net/ To post to the mailinglist or change settings: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/POLITICAL-ECONOMY-RN.html If replying, please do not reply to everybody. Similarly, please don't send everybody messages to the moderator. There is a confirmation-link function in operation to prevent this happening by mistake.