With almost one year left for the end of the project “Central Asian Law: legal cultures and business environments in Central Asia”, the participants of the project are working hard to finalise their research publications. Project workshop was organised in Istanbul on January 3-4, 2023 and gathered all project participants in one place to present, discuss and prepare research papers for publication later on. The main focus of the two-day workshop was for the early-stage researchers to receive feedback from experienced researchers of the project as well as their peers, improve their article and prepare it for publication. After the peer-review sessions and setting deadlines, the project participants discussed the possible publication options for research articles.
Apart from the paper discussions, the project workshop also had some presentations where the participants shared the progress of their research findings. For example, Tolibjon Mustafoev and Chris Thornhill shared their experience of conducting fieldwork in Uzbekistan on the topic of administrative law reform and legal integration, and Krists Ansons from Latvia University talked about how Kyrgyzstan is implementing the OECD’s double taxation requirements. Participants from Istanbul Medipol University also presented their research. Halil Kürşad Aslan presented his observations on the mobilization of the Tajik diaspora in the Russian Federation, while Hatice Deniz Genç presented the preliminary findings of her fieldwork and discussed the case of Uzbekistan and how it is implementing the international norms on migration as well as the role of international organisations in this process.
The project also had presentations by some invited guests. For example, Kobil Ruziev from UWE Bristol shared his research about the challenges of building pro-growth institutions in Central Asia based on the ongoing research project in the sphere of finance in Uzbekistan. Another guest – Dilshodjon Rakhmonov, pro-rector of Tashkent State University of Economics, talked about the exchange policy in Uzbekistan. The project also invited some other guest speakers, such as entrepreneurs, who shared their practical experience of conducting business, as well as a prominent blogger Dima Qayum. He presented his blogging activities, how he gets data, verifies it and presents it to his audience, and his creative approach to tackling corruption issues through humour and satire.
The project workshop ended with the presentation of the project results so far and with the discussion of plans for the last year of the project and different means of dissemination of research findings to different audiences.
