Program

• Day 1: Current Challenges

  Co-sponsored by the Promise Institute for Human Rights, Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs, and Corporate Accountability Lab

  ---

  9:15 am - 9:35 am (PST) - Opening Remarks from the Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs, Promise Institute for Human Rights and Corporate Accountability Lab

  9:45 am - 10:45 am  (PST) - Keynote Address

  Speaker

  • Michael Fakhri, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

  Moderator

  • Aslı Ü. Bâli, UCLA School of Law

  11:00 am - 12:15 pm (PST) - Panel: Human Trafficking in the International Food Supply Chain

  This panel will address the current legal environment around forced labor, trafficking, and slavery in the food supply chain. Food sectors including chocolate and seafood have been found to have endemic problems with slavery and trafficking. This panel will address the current legal landscape and proposed technological and practical solutions to hold wealthy corporations accountable for what is happening in their supply chain.

  This panel is approved for 1.25 hours of general MCLE credit.

  Download the papers for this panel.

  Panelists

  • Beth Van Schaack, Stanford Law School
  • Paul Hoffman, UCI Law School, Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes LLP
  • Jesus M. Pizarro Rodriguez, Heifer International
  • Kishanthi Parella, Washington and Lee University

  Moderator

  • Michael Roberts, UCLA School of Law

  12:15 pm -1:15 pm (PST) - Lunch Break

  1:30 pm - 2:45 pm (PST) - Concurrent Panels: Current Challenges

  1. Corporate Liability for International and Transnational Crimes
     
     Corporations sometimes facilitate crimes across country borders. This panel will examine recent and ongoing cases regarding criminal activity that is aided and abetted from abroad by corporations. In particular, the panel will discuss recent transmissions to the ICC regarding war crimes; aiding and abetting jurisprudence in various legal systems around the world; the transnational laws around human trafficking; and holding corporations accountable civilly for funding paramilitary groups.
     
     This panel is approved for 1.25 hours of general MCLE credit.
     
     Download the papers for this panel.
     
     Panelists
     
     -- Agnieszka Fryszman, Cohen Milstein
     -- Miriam Saage-Maaß, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
     -- Monalisa, International Human Rights Lawyer
     -- Marissa Vahlsing, EarthRights International
     
     Moderator
     
     -- Cathy Sweetser, Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law

  ---

  2. The Corporation as Global Superpower
     
     Corporate Capture, Corporate Influence, and International Human Rights Law: Multinational corporations have continued to assert increasing influence on states and their decision making. How does the influence of corporations on state power affect the creation and enforcement of human rights law? How can countries hold corporations accountable when the corporations are larger than the countries by an order of magnitude?
     
     This panel is approved for 1.25 hours of general MCLE credit.
     
     Download the papers for this panel.
     
     Panelists
     
     -- Anita Ramasastry, University of Washington School of Law, United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights
     -- Surya Deva, City University of Hong Kong
     -- Dominic Renfrey, Center for Constitutional Rights
     
     Moderator
     
     -- Charity Ryerson, Corporate Accountability Lab
• Day 2: Future Challenges

  Co-sponsored by the Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs and the UCLA International and Comparative Law Program

  ---

  9:00 am -9:15 am (PST) - Welcome to Day Two from Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs

  9:30 am -10:45 am (PST) - Paper Workshops

  Paper Workshop: AI, Data Privacy, & Future Technologies

  Participants

  • Misha Nayak-Oliver, Just Fair UK -
    • Corporate Activity Compounding Intersectional Inequities: Rethinking AI Regulation to Protect ESCR in the UK (Download Paper)
  • Dorothy Vinsky, LLM Candidate at UCLA School of Law
    • Lessons from Standard Oil for Facebook and Google (Download Paper)
  • Scott Shackelford,Isak Nti Asare, Rachel Dockery, Angie Raymond, andAlexandra Sergueeva, Indiana University
    • Should We Trust a Black Box to Safeguard Human Rights? A Comparative Analysis of AI Governance (Download Paper)

  Moderator

  • Alex Alben, UCLA School of Law

  ---

  Paper Workshop: The Corporation as a Global Superpower

  Participants

  • Alveena Shah, Dechert LLP
    • Leasing the Rain: Water, Privatization, and Human Rights (Download Paper)
  • Timothy Webster, Western New England University School of Law (Download Paper)
    • South Korea Shatters the Paradigm: Corporate Liability, Historical Accountability, and the Second World War (Download Paper)
  • Mara González Souto, JD Candidate at UCLA School of Law (Download Paper)
    • Through the ATS Door, Now What?: The Prevalence of MNC Misconduct, Disguise & Manipulation (Download Paper)

  Moderator

  • Alex Wang, UCLA School of Law

  ---

  Paper Workshop: Sanctions and Human Rights Enforcement

  Participants

  • Marina Aksenova, IE Law School
    • Three Potential Problems of Establishing Corporate Facilitation under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Download Paper)
  • Jernej Letnar Černič, European School of Law, New University
    • Enforcement Mechanisms Under the Potential United Nations Business and Human Rights Treaty: An Exploration (Download Paper)

  Moderator

  • Richard Steinberg, UCLA School of Law

  11:00 am -12:15 pm (PST) - Concurrent Panels: Future Challenges

  1. AI, Surveillance, and Digital Privacy
     
     The growing concerns regarding corporate social responsibility surrounding digital privacy, facial recognition, artificial intelligence, and the monetization of personal information has begun to gain ground in the legal field. What are the legal and political limits on how corporations govern themselves and the data they have collected? How realistically can international law prevent and mitigate human rights violations due to new and future technologies?
     
     This panel is approved for 1.25 hours of general MCLE credit.
     
     Readings
     
     -- Maya Wang, ‘The Robots are Watching Us,’
     -- What is the GDPR, the EU’s new data protection law?
     -- Amba Kak, ed., “Regulating Biometrics: Global Approaches and Urgent Questions” AI Now Institute, September 1 2020
     
     Panelists
     
     -- April Falcon Doss, Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP
     -- Amba Kak, AI Now Institute at NYU
     -- Maya Wang, Human Rights Watch
     -- Wojciech Wiewiórowski, European Data Protection Supervisor
     
     Moderator
     
     -- Byron Tau, Wall Street Journal

  ---

  2. Space: Humankind's Last, Best Hope for Peace?
     
     The space race between West and East in the middle of the twentieth century resulted in a number of technological developments and captivated the imagination of a generation. Now, in the twenty-first century, the space race has become increasingly privatized, and private companies—rather than the government—have begun to propose their own agendas for humanity's future in space. Elon Musk wants SpaceX to take private citizens to Mars. NASA wants to partially privatize the International Space Station. Jeff Bezos founded corporation Blue Origin, which envisions "millions of people living and working in space." As these private firms expand their activities in space and new enterprises enter the market, what legal frameworks should guide and constrain their behavior? How can international law, including existing international human rights law, hold corporate actors accountable in space?
     
     This panel is approved for 1.25 hours of general MCLE credit.
     
     Readings
     
     -- Steven Freeland, (2020), 'The limits of law : challenges to the global governance of space activities', Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol 153, no 1 , pp 89 - 101
     -- Center for Strategic and International Studies, Space Threat Assessment 2020
     
     Panelists
     
     -- Steven Freeland, University of Western Sydney
     -- Mahulena Hofmann, University of Luxembourg
     -- Makena Young, Center for Strategic and International Studies
     
     Moderator
     
     -- Rachel Crane, CNN

  ---

  3. Sanctions and Human Rights Enforcement
     
     Multilateral and unilateral sanctions are a frequent tool of states to halt access to the international financial system of human rights violators. Corporations play a role in both the perpetration and penalization of international human rights violations. How effective are sanctions as an accountability mechanism, and what is the role of financial institutions? Have sanctions for human rights abuses as part of international or bilateral trade agreements been effective tools for enforcement? What potential do international human rights mechanisms offer, and how can this best be realized?
     
     This panel is approved for 1.25 hours of general MCLE credit.
     
     Readings
     
     -- George A. Lopez, ‘Enforcing Human Rights through Economic Sanctions,’ in Dina Shelton (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law, 2013
     -- Maarten Smeets, ‘Can economic sanctions be effective?’, WTO Staff Working Paper, No. ERSD-2018-03
     
     Panelists
     
     -- John Prendergast, The Sentry
     -- Anasuya Syam, Human Trafficking Legal Center
     -- Scott Johnston, Human Rights First
     -- Luis Moreno Ocampo, Getnick & Getnick LLP, former first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
     
     Moderator
     -- Richard Steinberg, UCLA School of Law

  ---

  12:15 pm - 12:30 pm (PST) - Closing Remarks from Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs