The IILJ InfraReg Project held a series of workshops on infrastructure as regulation at the Gioja Institute of the University of Buenos Aires Law School in early July 2019. The InfraReg team included the IILJ director Benedict Kingsbury, along with Kevin Davis, Angelina Fisher, Paul Mertenskötter, Alejandro Rodiles, and Nahuel Maisley.

On Wednesday, July 3, the IILJ, the Gioja Institute, and the NYU Law in Buenos Aires Program held a public talk on ‘The Power of Infrastructures in Global Governance’. The talk included presentations by Benedict Kingsbury, Kevin Davis, Angelina Fisher, and Nahuel Maisley, and a thought-provoking exchange with the audience.

The next two days, the InfraReg team hosted intensive workshops with local academics. The first two meetings included international law scholars and practitioners from various institutions. After an initial introduction by Benedict Kingsbury, lively and informal conversations covered topics such as digital barriers to access residence or refugee status in Argentina, public contracting for infrastructure and its investment law consequences, transnational dimensions of the development of Argentina’s transport infrastructure, and human rights aspects of infrastructure development, among many others.

The third meeting involved scholars from the law and society field. The discussion, this time, included topics such as the infrastructural dimension of legal education, the recurring judicialization of (non-digital) infrastructure projects in Argentina, and the law-making process behind the building code of the City of Buenos Aires.

Finally, the IILJ team carried out a field visit to one of the many social housing developments in the City of Buenos Aires which receives funding from international financial institutions, at the Barrio Rodrigo Bueno. The team interacted with both social housing experts and public officials from the city government who were leading the project.