JILFA virtually hosted our 2021 Symposium on International Human Rights and Corporate Accountability: Current and Future Challenges on February 26-27, 2021. Friday’s panels included discussions of human trafficking and international food supply chains, aiding, abetting, and terrorist financing, and corporate capture. Saturday’s panels included discussion of the privatization of space, sanctions and human rights enforcement, and AI, surveillance, and digital privacy. The Symposium was in collaboration with Corporate Accountability Lab, UCLA’s Promise Institute for Human Rights, and UCLA’s International and Comparative Law Program.
DAY 1: CURRENT CHALLENGES
Organized by the Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs and co-sponsored by the Promise Institute for Human Rights 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
- 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.
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
- 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
Organized by the Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs and co-sponsored by 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 (Paper)
- Dorothy Vinsky, LLM Candidate at UCLA School of Law (Paper)
- Scott Shackelford, Indiana University (Paper)
- Co-authored by: Rachel Dawn Dockery, Isak Nti Asare, Angie Raymond and Alexandra Sergueeva
Moderator
- Alex Alben, UCLA School of Law
Paper Workshop: The Corporation as a Global Superpower
Participants
- Alveena Shah, Dechert LLP (Paper)
- Timothy Webster, Western New England University School of Law (Paper)
- Mara González Souto, JD Candidate at UCLA School of Law (Paper)
Moderator
- Alex Wang, UCLA School of Law
Paper Workshop: Sanctions and Human Rights Enforcement
Participants
- Marina Aksenova, IE Law School (Paper)
- Jernej Letnar Černič, European School of Law, New University (Paper)
Moderator
- Richard Steinberg, UCLA School of Law
11:00 am -12:15 pm (PST) – Concurrent Panels: Future Challenges
- 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. Please download the papers for this panel below.
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
- 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. Please download the papers for this panel below.
Panelists
— Steven Freeland, University of Western Sydney
— Mahulena Hofmann, University of Luxembourg
— Makena Young, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Moderator
— Rachel Crane, CNN
- 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. Please download the papers for this panel below.
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
UCLA JILFA 