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Download: Oxford Louwes 2012 Lecture Poster

Louwes Fund

• History of the Louwes Fund
• Louwes Scholarship
• Louwes Fellowship
• Louwes Fund Events

History of the Louwes Fund

The Louwes Fund at the University of Oxford's Oxford Water Futures Programme was established by a charitable gift from the late Evelyn Blanche Louwes, in commemoration of her husband, Hendrik Jan Louwes. Springing from a family of generations of farmers, Hendrik Louwes graduated from Leiden University in 1940 with a degree in politics, philosophy and economics. Later, he spent a significant portion of his life working for the Food and Agricultures Organization - a specialized agency of the United Nations. Based in the United States, Italy and Egypt, his worked stretched from Libya to Afghanistan. He was also involved in projects in Argentina, San Salvador, Iraq and Iran.

Hendrik Louwes was involved in agricultural marketing and crop irrigation. Working in the same discipline, Evelyn Louwes was employed by the International Federation of Agricultural Producers. Aware that governments use food as a political weapon, they believed that studies into such behaviour would make people more aware of both the importance of and socio-political and socio-legal context of food production and distribution.

The Louwes Fund was established to undertake research on both water and food at Leiden University and the University of Oxford. The Oxford Water Futures Programme has established both the Louwes Scholarship and the Louwes Fellowship.

Louwes Water Scholarship

The Louwes Water Scholarship was awarded between 2007 and 2011 to support a scholar accepted to the MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management.

Past Recipients of the Louwes Water Scholarship

2010/11 - Carlos Verduzco

Carlos Verduzco is reading for the MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management at the School of Geography and the Environment and is enrolled as a graduate student at Christ Church, Oxford. He has a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Sonora in Hermosillo, Mexico. As an undergraduate student, his main interests were water resources and water distribution networks. As a professional engineer, his work lead him from soils and structures to water and the environment. As a graduate student, Carlos hopes to integrate key aspects of water policy and management with his science and engineering background in order to develop a better understanding of the issues facing various participants in the water sector. As a long-term goal, he is interested in research and the improvement of his home region in the Sonoran desert, as well as the impact well planned policy can have on water-scarce regions.

2009/10 - Yamini Panchaksharam

Yamini Panchaksharam is reading for the MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management at the School of Geography and the Environment and is enrolled as a graduate student at Christ Church, Oxford. She has a BSc in Zoology and an MSc in Natural Resources Management from the University of Delhi and TERI University (New Delhi, India) respectively. She has been working as a Project Officer in the Freshwater and Wetlands Programme at the World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF-India) since 2007. She has been involved in the preparation of information sheets on Ramsar wetlands (RIS) for selected wetlands of Uttar Pradesh, India, and in the coordination of work amongst field offices and the secretariat at Delhi for the High Altitude Wetlands conservation project. Yamini is keen to learn how to link the hydrological conditions of freshwater lakes with possible community-based watershed management and waste water management systems. As a long term goal she is interested in carrying out research related to lake hydrology, conservation and management in the Himalayan high altitude lakes in India.

2008/9 - Wondwosen Michago Seide

Wondwosen Michago Seide is reading for the MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management at the School of Geography and the Environment and Christ Church, Oxford. He has a BA in Political Science and International Relations and an MA in Environment and Development from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. At both undergraduate and graduate levels his thesis examined water and environmental issues focussing on the Nile River as a geo-political and development unit respectively.

Wondwosen began working on water issues as an assistant researcher at the Ethiopian International institute for Peace and Development in 2003. Before his admission to the MSc Program in October 2008, Wondwosen worked as a researcher in the Ethiopian Nile Basin Dialogue Forum, a national chapter of the Nile Basin Discourse - a network of civil societies from the ten riparian countries within the Nile Basin. Wondwosen's main research interests relate to transboundary rivers, water governance, hydro-politics and hydro-hegemony. He has a particular interest in the Nile River and the Nile Basin Initiative.

2007/8 - Daniel Dennis Konadu, Ghana

Daniel Dennis Konadu graduated from the MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management in 2008. He also holds a BSc degree in Geodetic Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. Prior to his admission to the MSc Program in October 2007, Dennis worked in the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Geodesy sections of the Department of Geomatic Engineering of KNUST as a teaching and research assistant specializing in GIS applications in surface water modelling and management.

Before coming to Oxford, Dennis was also involved in research work at the Catchment Science Centre of the Kroto Research Institute at the University of Sheffield as a visiting research assistant/student of IAESTE UK. In Sheffield, Dennis worked on a GIS application in risk modelling of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution of surface water to support the Catchment Sensitive Farming programme of DEFRA, which aims to develop measures to tackle diffuse water pollution from agriculture to meet the EU Water Framework Directive requirements. In 2004, Dennis was also honoured with the prestigious Prof. E.E.L. Wuddah-Martey Award of Excellence by the Ghana Institution of Surveyors for graduating as the overall best BSc student in Geodetic engineering in Ghana.

Louwes Research Fellowship

On 1 December 2007, the Oxford Water Futures Programme appointed the Louwes Research Fellow to undertake research in the area of the socio-political nature of water and/or development studies, as well as to conduct some teaching and supervising for the MSc Water Science, Policy and Management.

Louwes Fund Events

Oxford Louwes Lecture 2012

The University of Oxford is pleased to host the 3rd Louwes Lecture. It will be held on 23 February 2012 at 4:30 pm at Christ Church in the Blue Boar lecture theatre, followed by a drinks reception in the Friend Room. Professor Edith Brown Weiss, Francis Cabell Brown Professor of International Law, and Co-Director of the Joint Degree in Law and Government, at Georgetown University Law Centre, has kindly agreed to come from Washington, D.C. to give the lecture. Her talk will be entitled 'Accountability and International Law: Reflections from Water Projects'.

Professor Brown Weiss is highly active in the areas of public international, environmental, and water resources law. In September 2002 she was appointed to the 3-member Inspection Panel of the World Bank and from 2003-2007 served as the President of the Inspection Panel, an appointment at the Vice-Presidential level. Her past professional experience includes positions as Associate General Counsel for International Activities at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1990-92, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and Politics at Princeton University, and Research Associate at Columbia University and the Brookings Institution. Her numerous professional activities in both international and environmental law have included positions as President of the American Society of International Law, April 1994-96, chair of the Committee for Research in Global Environmental Change of the Social Science Research Council, 1989-94, U.S. Special Legal Advisor to the North American Commission on the Environment 1996-2002, and elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Law Institute, and the Commission on Environmental Law of the IUCN. She has been a member of the National Academy of Science's Commission on Geosciences, Environment and Resources, NAS Water Science and Technology Board, the NAS/Israel, Jordan, Palestinian Territories Panel on Sustainable Water Supplies in the Middle East, and the NAS Environmental Studies Board. She served on the Board of Directors of the Japanese Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, the Advisory Council of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Council of Advisors to the Cousteau Society, and on the Board of Trustees for the Center for International Environmental Law. Professor Brown Weiss is a member of the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law; Journal of International Economic Law; and International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics; and is the faculty adviser to the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review. She has published numerous articles in international and environmental law, and is the author of many books, including Fresh Water and International Economic Law (co-author, 2005), Reconciling Environment and Trade (co-author, 2001), Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords (co-author, 1998), International Environmental Law and Policy (co-author 1998, 2007), and In Fairness to Future Generations: International Law, Common Patrimony, and Intergenerational Equity (1989), which received the Certificate of Merit Award in 1990 from the American Society of International Law, and has been published in French, Japanese, Spanish, and Chinese. In 2003, Professor Brown Weiss received the ABA Award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy, in 1994 the Elizabeth Haub Prize for international environmental law given by the Free University of Brussels and the International Council of Environmental Law (ICEL), and in 1996 the Prominent Women in International Law Award from the American Society of International Law, in 2008 the Award for International Environmental Law from the Center for International Environmental Law and in 2010 the Manley O. Hudson Medal from the American Society of International Law.

Oxford Louwes Lecture 2009

The 2nd Louwes Lecture was held at the Oxford Centre for Water Research at the University of Oxford on 21 January 2009 at 4:30 pm, Christ Church, Lecture Room 2. It was followed by a drinks reception in the Friend Room at Christ Church. Professor Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Chair of the Department of International Law of the Faculty of Law at the University of Geneva, delivered the lecture which was entitled 'Freshwater and International Law: Universal and Regional Perspectives'.

Professor Boisson de Chazournes has gained a wide-ranging reputation in academic circles for her contribution to international law, in such fields as the law of international organizations, international economic law and international environmental law, while at the same time being recognized for her practical work as Senior Counsel to the World Bank and as advisor to many international organizations. In the field of dispute settlement she has served as chairperson of WTO arbitration panels on pre-shipment inspections and has pleaded before the ICJ and other dispute settlement procedures. She is a member of the WTO indicative list of governmental and non-governmental panellists and a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Professor Boisson de Chazournes has been professor in, and chair of the department of, international law at the Law Faculty of the University of Geneva since 1999. She is a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and at the University of Aix-Marseille III, and has been invited as guest lecturer in numerous universities in Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa and Asia. She holds a PhD in international law from the Graduate Institute (summa cum laude), the Bar exam (France), a JD and a master degree in private law from the University of Lyon III, a BA in sociology from the University of Lyon II and a Diploma in Political Science from the Institute of Political Sciences (Lyon). She was visiting scholar at the University of Michigan (1989) and at Georgetown University (1994).

• Download: Oxford Louwes Lecture Poster [PDF: 767KB]

Leiden Louwes Lecture 2007

In December 2007, nine students from the MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management and three members of staff from the Oxford Centre for Water Research traveled to the University of Leiden. They participated in a one-day collaborative workshop held on 12 December 2007, as well as attended the 1st Louwes Lecture held at the National Museum of Natural History on 13 December 2007. The speakers at the lecture included Mrs Tineke Huizinga-Heringa, Vice-Minister of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, the Netherlands, and Ms Grace Padaca, Governor of Isabela Province, the Philippines.

International Conference on the Right to Water and Sanitation in Theory and Practice

On the 26 and 27 of November, 2008, the Oxford Centre for Water Research, the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights and the United Nations Development Programme are jointly hosting an International Conference on the Right to Water and Sanitation in Theory and Practice in Oslo, Norway. With the human right to water and sanitation being increasingly promoted as a way of viewing the world water crisis, the conference will provide a unique opportunity for participants to reflect on the theory and growing practice surrounding the human right from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Some of the key questions include the implications of the right for legal and economic regimes, the allocation of scarce water resources, international development, as well as the rights of women, indigenous peoples and minorities. For more information, please see the conference website.

Interdisciplinary Workshop on the Human Right to Water

On 29 February 2008, from 2-5 pm, the Oxford Centre for Water Research held an Interdisciplinary Workshop on the Human Right to Water. The objective of the workshop was to hold an interdisciplinary forum exploring the implications of recognizing the right to water in practice.

The panellists were Peregrine Swann, Senior Infrastructure Advisor and Sara Godfrey, Assistant Policy Analyst, Water and Sanitation Team, UK Department for International Development (DFID); Henry Northover, Head of Policy, WaterAid; and Ashfaq Khalfan, Co-ordinator Right to Water Programme, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE).

A copy of the Thematic Discussion Report is available online:

• OCWR Interdisciplinary Workshop Report, 29 February 2008 [PDF: 496KB]