Call for Papers: 12th International Conference on Law and Economics (ICLE-2026) on 'Positive Externalities for a Better Society', Shimla

The 12th International Conference on Law and Economics (ICLE-2026) is organised by Himachal Pradesh National Law University, Shimla in association with the Law and Economics Trust, and will be held on the HPNLU campus at Ghandal, Shimla on 24-25 October 2026.

The conference organisers invite original papers for oral presentation in three streams: the conference theme, 'Positive Externalities for a Better Society'; the technical sessions for which the Conference Coordination Committee has received proposals; and the areas covered by the JEL Classification Codes Guide, Code K: Law and Economics.

Himachal Pradesh National Law University (HPNLU), Shimla was established by the State Government in 2016 by an Act of the Legislature (Act 16 of 2016) and began functioning on 5 October 2016. It admits students through CLAT for its five-year integrated B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) and B.B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) programmes and for its one-year LL.M., which offers specialisations in Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Forensic Studies, Business Law and Intellectual Property Rights. The University also runs Ph.D. and post-doctoral (LL.D.) programmes in law.

The ICLE series began in 2015 under a consortium of GNLU Gandhinagar, IIT Kanpur and IIM Ahmedabad, which was transformed into the Indian Association of Law and Economics (IALE) at the second conference at IIT Kanpur. Subsequent editions were hosted by GIPE Pune, IIM Bangalore, NLIU Bhopal, TNNLU Tiruchirappalli, NLU Delhi and BBAU Lucknow. The Law and Economics Trust was constituted at the ninth conference at BBAU, Lucknow, and has since co-hosted the editions at IIT Kharagpur and the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum.

The Trust states its mission as applying law and economics methods to evaluate and design incentive-structured institutions that generate cooperative surplus and reduce transaction costs, disseminating Techno-Economic-Legal Learning (TELL), and promoting research and dialogue on the economic analysis of rules, law and governance in India.

The concept note takes its starting point from Ronald H. Coase (1960), who showed that under zero transaction costs and voluntary bargaining the efficient outcome will occur irrespective of how property rights are assigned, and from Elinor Ostrom (1990), who showed that common property resources can be exploited efficiently by self-managed local communities without state intervention or privatisation. The literature on positive externalities (James E. Meade, 1952; Steven N. S. Cheung, 1973) is invoked to show how the activities of beekeepers and orchardists generate the external effects of pollination and nectar that lead to fairness in exchange.

The organisers argue that Social Capital-oriented Practices (SCoP) of community activities reduce the wrongful consequences of transaction costs in factor and product markets, which arise from asymmetric information, incompletely specified contracts, passing-off and slavish imitation, privacy, coerciveness, defective and deficient goods and services, pollution and administrative costs. SCoP also generates accurate data, and data analytics aided by cyber-technologies yields information on the preferences (asset specificity) and constraints (bounded rationality) of producers, consumers, citizens and the State.

That information is said to create incentives for man-machine interactive decisions on public goods, quasi-public goods, merit goods, public utilities, and safety and security, within the limits of resource conservation (natural regenerative capacity) and pollution mitigation (natural assimilative capacity). Allocation is framed against three criteria drawn from the property rule (Pareto efficiency), the liability rule (Pareto improvement and distributive justice) and the inalienability rule (true and self-paternalism), which together generate cooperative surplus.

The note cites the work of Nobel laureates Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt (2025) on the need for efficient institutional mechanisms to improve the use pattern of technology, and concludes that SCoP of community activities will promote Sustainability of Human Energy for Sustainability of Utility of Life (SHE for SOUL), generating positive externalities for a better society.

The Conference Coordination Committee has received proposals for the following fourteen technical sessions. Concept notes and the associated team members for each session are published on the conference page, and prospective authors are asked to contact the correspondence member of the relevant session theme for further information.

• Virtual Autopsy Practice in India: Impact on Law and Economics
• Positive externalities for a better society: In the perspectives of surgeon services
• Trade and Diplomacy: In the perspective of Positive Externalities
• Positive Externalities of NET ZERO Targets Set
• Bridging the Lab and the Market: Navigating the Interplay of Technology Transfer and Indian Legal Frameworks
• Gender Justice: Law, Economics and the Quest for Substantive Equality
• Positive Externalities for a Better Society: The Role of Armed Forces in Merit Goods and Services
• Positive Externalities of Innovation, Trade and Competition
• Law, Policy, and Economics of Open Source
• Techno-economic and Legal Aspects of Climate Resilience: In the perspective of Sustainable Development
• Conceptualizing Crime Deterrence as a Positive Externality: Inquiries into the Economics of the Criminal Justice System in India
• Positive Externalities of Litigation for a Better Society
• Designing Incentive-based Mechanisms for Nature Ecosystem Service Valuation, Nature-based Solutions, and Natural Capital
• Positive Externalities of Disability-Inclusive Policy: Law, Economics and Institutional Framework

Full papers must be between 5,000 and 7,000 words and should carry an abstract followed by sections on Background, Research Design, Inferences, Limitations and References. A maximum of four keywords may be given.

• Body text: Times New Roman, font size 12, line spacing 1.5
• Footnotes: font size 10, line spacing 1
• Citation style: OSCOLA, 4th edition
• Keywords: maximum four

Papers submitted on the conference theme 'Positive Externalities for a Better Society' and under JEL Classification Code K (Law and Economics) will be reviewed by the review panel. Papers submitted against a technical session's concept note will be reviewed by the team members of that respective session.

Authors must send the full paper by email to icle2026@hpnlu.ac.in on or before 24 September 2026. Shortlisted papers will be communicated to the authors on or before 5 October 2026, and registration must be completed by 5 October 2026.

The registration fee depends on the participant category and on whether payment is made on or before 5 October 2026.

• Student: Rs 1,500 on or before 5 October 2026; Rs 2,500 thereafter
• Indian participant: Rs 3,000 on or before 5 October 2026; Rs 4,000 thereafter
• Industry participant: Rs 5,000 on or before 5 October 2026; Rs 7,000 thereafter
• International participant: USD 100 on or before 5 October 2026; USD 150 thereafter

The fee covers conference materials, breakfast, lunch, dinner and coffee breaks throughout the conference. Accommodation and travel are not included in the registration fee.

The organisers state that shortlisted papers may be published and that publication details will be shared later.

The announced programme includes a panel discussion on 'Solid Waste, Externalities, and Urban Sustainability: Pathways to Sustainable Cities in India', chaired by Dr. Chandra Sekhar Bahinipati of IIT Tirupati, with panelists Prof. Arindam Biswas (IIT Roorkee), Dr. Anil Kumar Roy (CEPT Ahmedabad), Dr. Bikramaditya Kumar Choudhary (JNU, New Delhi), Dr. Bijay Kumar Das (NIT Patna) and Dr. Arvind Kumar Pandey (IIT Tirupati).

The Conference Coordination Committee comprises Prof. (Dr.) Priti Saxena, Vice Chancellor, HPNLU Shimla; Prof. Murali Prasad Panta, Department of Economic Sciences, IIT Kanpur; Prof. L. C. Mallaiah, Vice Chancellor, Dravidian University, Andhra Pradesh; and Mr. Vishnu P. Sudarshan, Partner, JSA.

The Academic Committee is led by Prof. Girjesh Shukla, Professor of Law and Chairperson of the Centre for Business Law and Economics, HPNLU Shimla, with Dr. Santosh Kumar Sharma, Dr. Praveen Kumar, Dr. Hari Chand and Dr. Esha Sharma from HPNLU, and Ms. Amoolya Khurana and Ms. Sneha Sehgal from JSA. Separate committees have been constituted for accommodation, transport, food, public relations and technical support.