18 Oct 2018
Professor Brian Lepard will chair a panel at International Law Weekend at Fordham Law School in New York City on Saturday, October 20. The theme of the panel is “How Customary International Law Matters in Protecting Human Rights.”
Professor Lepard is the Harold W. Conroy Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law and a recognized expert on international law. His most recent book is Reexamining Customary International Law, which he edited and to which he contributed several chapters. The book was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017.
The panel on October 20 will explore why and how customary international law matters in protecting human rights. In particular, it will empirically analyze the use of customary international law by national and international courts to safeguard human rights. It will critically examine recent judicial decisions involving attempts to hold business corporations accountable for violations of customary human rights law, including Jesner v. Arab Bank PLC, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2018, and Araya v. Nevsun Resources Ltd., decided by the British Columbia Court of Appeal in November 2017. The panel will also investigate whether negotiations for a Global Compact on Refugees and other global standards on refugees may be contributing to the development of norms of customary international law relevant to the protection of refugees. Finally, the panel will also look at the practical role that customary international law has played in defining and protecting the right to religious freedom.
Other panelists include Niels Petersen, Professor of Public Law, International Law, and European Union Law at the University of Münster; Alan Franklin, Managing Director of Global Business Risk Management and Faculty, Athabasca University and Diplo Foundation; Dana Schmalz, Visiting Scholar at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School; and Mark Janis, William F. Starr Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut.