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Team of International Scholars Including USD Law Professor Lobel Releases UN Global Analysis Report

Vienna (November 19, 2012) – The Center for Global Governance Studies and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)—a team of leading international academics that includes Orly Lobel, the Herzog Endowed Scholar and Professor of Law at the University of San Diego—released today a report naming the top 10 countries in the 2012 Connectedness Index: Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Singapore, Ireland, Canada and the United States.

Since last year, Canada and Ireland have significantly improved their positions, but the United States, while still ranked 10th, has lost six places in the index due to its deteriorating international connectedness sub-index.

The report, Networks for Prosperity: Connecting Development Knowledge Beyond 2015, illustrates the importance of network governance in the context of economic globalization, aid and development. It argues that this is of particular relevance in the context of the current debate on the establishment of a new set of global development goals by 2015. The updated 2012 Connectedness Index, covering 132 countries, shows that many emerging economies—such as Chile, Costa Rica, South Africa and Vietnam—have systematically improved their connectedness.

Human capital and knowledge retention is the subject of Professor Lobel’s contribution to the report. In October, Lobel was invited to speak at a UNIDO meeting at the United Nations headquarters in Vienna, Austria, to discuss her research about knowledge networks and policies that encourage investment and effective use of human capital, which is the subject of her forthcoming book, Innovation’s Edge (Yale University Press, forthcoming 2013).

Within the UNIDO report, Lobel investigates the way knowledge-flows can contribute to innovation and explores the barriers preventing knowledge flows between firms. Intellectual property issues are at the core of arguments presented, as overprotection of such rights impedes the improvement of a given idea, technology, or practice. Encapsulation of human capital results, thus impeding knowledge network formation and inhibiting innovative behaviors. The implications of this contribution are profound for international knowledge management.

Read the full UNIDO report.

About Orly Lobel

Orly Lobel writes and teaches in the areas of employment law, administrative law, legal theory, torts, consumer law and trade secrets. Prior to coming to USD, she taught at Yale Law School and served as a fellow at the Harvard University Center for Ethics and the Professions, the Kennedy School of Government's Hauser Center for Non-Profit Research, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. A graduate of Tel Aviv University Law School, she clerked on the Israeli Supreme Court and did her graduate studies at Harvard Law School. Her current research focuses on new models of law and governance in the context of the new economy, the labor market, privatization and new public management techniques. Professor Lobel received her LL.B. in 1998 from Tel Aviv University and both her LLM in 2000 and her SJD in 2006 from Harvard Law School.