05 Mar 2019
Professor Brian Lepard has published an article entitled “Why Customary International Law Matters in Protecting Human Rights” on the international law blog, Volkerrechtsblog. The article serves as the introduction to a symposium on customary international law and human rights appearing on the blog in the next week. Other contributors are Alan Franklin, Managing Director of Global Business Risk Management and Faculty, Athabasca University and Diplo Foundation; Dr. 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.
Topics covered in Professor Lepard’s article, and the symposium in general, include the impact of customary human rights law on businesses; whether new standards regarding the sharing of responsibility among nations for receiving refugees and asylum-seekers are now part of customary human rights law; and the role of customary international law in protecting religious freedom, particularly the religious liberty of members of minority religions.
The symposium was inspired by a panel at International Law Weekend in New York on October 20, 2018. International Law Weekend is an annual conference organized by the American Branch of the International Law Association. The panel was sponsored by the American Branch’s Committee on the Formation of Customary International Law, of which Professor Lepard serves as chair.
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 and human rights. 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.