The ELSA

Fun and Education go Hand in HandStudy Visit and International ConferenceEnd of November. STOP. 23rd - 30 th November 2001. STOP.Cracow. STOP. International Conference. STOPAgnieszka KacperskaELSA Cracow“E-business Uniting Nations: Legal Aspect of Internet Trading” STOPIt was an unusual conference. Neitherdid we promote it on the forum of ELSAInternational, nor was there any call forapplicants.At the very beginning of planning thisproject we thought about a differentform, different from other internationalELSA conferences.As participants, we invited 4 local groupsfrom 4 countries: ELSA Brno (CzechRepublic), ELSA Donieck (Ukraine), ELSASaarbruecken (Germany), ELSA Vilnius(Lithuania) with whom we cooperate thelongest and with whom we were thinkingfor a longer time to have such anevent.We decided to combine the conferencewith a study visit.I. E-BUSINESS CONFERENCEHere we did not change much; we basedit on a typical programme :There were nine lectures during theweek. The topics of them were as follows:1) Making Contracts via Internet, DigitalSignature2) The Problem of Proper DomesticRegulations to Follow3) Consumer Protection LawRequirements4) Protection of Databases5) The Responsibility of Internet ServiceProviders7) E-Payments8) Taxes9) Application of Internet Technology bythe Local AuthoritiesAs lecturers, we engaged people fromCracow who not only deal with thetheme in theory but also in practice thusenabling our guests to meet people28working with E- business everyday. Thisturned out to be a great idea as manyinteresting discussions took place afterthe lectures.The Supervising Patronage over the projectwas taken by Professor J. Barta andProfessor R. Markiewicz from theInstitute of Inventiveness and Protectionof Intellectual Property, a recognisedauthority in Poland on matters such as e-business.II. STUDY VISITApart from lectures we planned the timein very detailed way: the guests couldthus participate in the conference, visitour city and the countryside.The participants were shown the OldTown, the Museum of JagiellonianUniversity, the Royal Castle - Wawel, andthe Old Jewish District – Kazimierz.We also organised excursions to the SaltMine in Wieliczka, and to Auschwitz –Birkenau, believing that these places arereally worth visiting.III. ELSA SPIRITWhich basically boils down to: party,party, party!Except for the ordinary pub crawling(during which the intention was to showour guests the diversity of pubs inCracow), we spent a very nice eveningtasting the traditional national dishes,prepared by the participants themselves.Our guests also got a taste of a Polishtradition of so called “Andrzejki” (St.Andrew’s Day). It is celebrated onAndrew’s name day, that is the 30th ofNovember with different kinds of futuretelling and special events, such as themost popular “wax pouring” (pouring ofhot wax into cold water and from theshape that is created guessing what willhappen in the nearest future). This wasmuch enjoyed by all the participantsmost of whom had not heard of this traditionbefore.IV. AND WHAT IS LEFT?We are planning to publish the outcomeof the conference in such publications asstudents’ papers of JagiellonianUniversity as all the lectures were recorded,and we obtained conspectuses fromthe lecturers as well.We shall soon publish photos on ELSACracow`s website. But the things thatwill certainly remain in our minds are thememories.Yet it must be said that if it had not beenfor involvement of the members of ELSABrno, ELSA Donieck, ELSA Saarbruecken,and ELSA Vilnius the whole projectwould not have been such a success.Therefore I would like to thank theselocal groups for coming to us, and forparticipating in the whole project includingboth the conference and the studyvisit.I hope this conference was a beginningof developing a cooperation betweenlocal groups all over the ELSA network.What is a Bilateral StudyVisit ?A Bilateral Study Visit occurs whentwo Local Groups decide to visiteach other (normally for a periodof a week).The receiving Local Group takescare of the logistics, and of thesocial and/or academic programme.After this first visit, as the term"Bilateral" indicates, it is time forthe Local Groups to trade their roleand, the now receiving onebecomes the visitor.