Ankara Bar Association organized its 6th International Ankara Law Congress between 11 and 15 January at Bilkent Hotel & Convention Center. Main topics were defined as: Justice and Law Reform, and Energy Law, Communication Law and Negotiation Law within the Scope of New Developments.
As Turk-internet.com we attended the congress and made an interview with Prof. Dr. Sylvia Kierkegaard[1], one of the top foreign speakers. Mrs. Kierkegaard is a legal adviser and corporate consultant, president of the International Association of IT Lawyers, professor at the Communications University of China, PhD external examiner, and editor of many Law Journals. She has served as expert adviser, speaker, and member of various Study Groups and Committees for the EU and the Council of Europe, which draft policies and proposals for legislative and regulatory policies on international level, as well as international associations. You can find the transcript and the video of our interview below:
Turk-Internet: Hello, Mrs. Kierkegaard. I think you are here, in Ankara Turkey for the second time. I know you from the last time. Could you tell us how do you feel about the congress?
Sylvia Kierkegaard: I think it is a really wonderful opportunity for foreign experts to come here to Turkey, and support experience of meeting their colleagues in the Turkish bar and Ankara bar especially, and to know about also different legislations in Turkey. Especially since Turkey wants to join European Union, you always want to attract people in law. And in fact I think the Ankara bar congress has made a tremendous contribution to the development of law in Turkey. I will probably like to mention especially Mr. Ahsen Coşar and Mr. Özgür Eralp for the fantastic contribution to make this congress very successful.
Turk-Internet: Could you tell us about your organization? It is very interesting.
Sylvia Kierkegaard: Oh, we are an international organization of IT lawyers. Actually a lot of us, I mean most of us, are members of the legal academic community; professors and deans of Universities. And at the same time a lot of us are experts; working as experts for the European Union and Council of Europe.
For example me personally, I am president of International Association of IT Lawyers (IAITL). I am chairing a college project which is a concortium funded by the governments of Holland, Austria, Germany, and the UK. And we are doing a comparative analysis of copyright law between China. And this foundation says a possible legislative reform is needed in China because you know the copyright is a main issue. And we are working on it. We’ve got Chinese academic social science network which is the very important for Chinese government. And we hold a lot of conferences, and aside from that we publish a lot of journals. I am editing journals for lawyers. So we get a lot of insights of big issues from companies in America and European Union.
Turk Internet: Do you think NGO’s are successful in Internet legislation?
Sylvia Kierkegaard: In Turkey?
Turk Internet: No, not only in Turkey. I am asking also for Turkey but think it as a whole. You know there are technological issues.
Sylvia Kierkegaard: Oh, yes. Technology is fast changing and how is the law able to cope with the technology? Actually, it is not able to cope with it. Because by the time you enact legislation, sometimes the technology is passé. And when the times in the past we had directives and know that actually no technology util. Our only concentrate was on one aspect of a technology and before you know it everything changes. And that is really a problem.
This is the second part of a video interview with Prof. Sylvia Kierkegaard. You can view the second part and the video of this interview through Kierkegaard : It is Not Clear Where to Apply for Internet Abuses – 2 link. There is also a Turkish translation of the same page at Sylvia Kierkegaard: Teknoloji Hızla Değişmekte ve Yasalar Bu Hızı Yakalamıyor – 1.
[1] Sylvia Kierkegaard on Wikipedia
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