Symposium Schedule

• February 26, 2022

  8:30 - 9:15 AM
  Coffee and Reception

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  9:15 - 9:30 AM
  Opening Remarks and Welcome from the Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs and the Promise Institute for Human Rights

  9:30 - 10:00 AM
  Keynote Speech I
  Soledad García Muñoz

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  10:00 - 11:25 AM
  Race and Ethnicity Panel

  This panel will look at borders, the pandemic and human rights through a lens of race and ethnicity. Using multiple perspectives, including Critical Race Theory and Third World Approaches to International Law, the panelists will explore how various racial identity markers themselves become borders that mediate access to rights, in the context of migrations and global pandemics. 

  
  Speakers:

  • John Reynolds
  • Karla McKanders 
  • Matiangai Sirleaf 
  • Odilia Romero

  Introductions by by Joseph Berra and Aslı Bâli

  Moderator: Aslı Bâli

   

  MCLE Readings 

  • "Disposable Lives: COVID-19 Vaccines and the Uprising" by Matiangai Sirleaf
  • "Enforcing the Borders of Blackness" by Karla McKanders
  • "Indigenous Rights and Language Sovereignty" by Odelia Romero, Joseph Berra and Shannon Speed

   

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  11:25 - 11:45 AM
  Break

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  11:45 AM - 1:00 PM
  Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Panel

  While SOGI discrimination may cause migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers to flee their country of origin, socially derived SOGI borders continue to exist inside territorial boundaries and impact immigration practices. This panel will address how international and domestic law contributes to the reinforcement of SOGI borders 
  and SOGI-based denial of human rights, particularly in the context of the COVID pandemic. 

  
  Speakers:

  • Macarena Sáez
  • Kimahli Powell

  Moderator: Ari Shaw

   

  MCLE Readings

  • "LGBTI+ Asylum Seekers in South Africa: A Review of Refugee Status Denials Involving Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity" by B Camminga
  • Rainbow Railroad 2020 Annual Report: "Understanding the State of LGBTQI+ Persecution" by Kimahli Powell et al
  • Vicky Hernandez v Honduras, Inter-American Court of Human Rights Judgement of March 26, 2021

   

  Break

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  1:00 PM - 2:40 PM
  Lunch Break

  Boxed lunch provided for those registered to attend in person. 

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  *2:00 PM - 2:40 PM
  Student Paper Presentation

  International law is currently establishing a framework for protecting Indigenous traditional knowledge, however a thorough analysis of customary international law demonstrates sufficient global consensus to support an understanding that Indigenous communities already have a customary right to traditional knowledge protections. 

  UCLA Law Student Bharath Gururagavendran, LLM will speak to his research on the implied rules derived from customary norms and their implications for human rights protections of Indigenous people's traditional knowledge. UCLA Law Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl will provide commentary. 

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  2:40 - 3:55 PM
  Disability Panel

  This panel will seek to address how the social conception of disability status drives and impacts migration, and serves as a barrier to those attempting to access and utilize domestic power structures and institutions. It will also consider how the challenges faced by persons with physical and mental disabilities are exacerbated in the context of global pandemics.  

  
  Speakers:

  • Katherine Pérez
  • Ron McCallum
  • Mary Crock

  Moderator: Brad Sears

   

  MCLE Readings

  • "Swift and Systematic? Identifying and Recording Disability in Forced Migration" by Mary Crock and Laura Smith-Khan
  • "Where Disability and Displacement Intersect: Asylum Seekers and Refugees with Disabilities" by Mary Crock, Christine Ernst and Ron McCallum
  • "The Protection of Vulnerable Groups" by Mary Crock

   

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  3:55 - 4:15 PM
  Break

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  4:15 - 4:45 PM
  Keynote Speech II
  E. Tendayi Achiume

  4:45 - 4:50 PM
  Thank You from JILFA

  4:50 PM
  Reception