Athens

“ESG and Corporate Sustainability: Global Perspectives on Regulatory Reform,” October 16 Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law annual conference

This year’s annual conference of the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law will address “ESG and Corporate Sustainability: Global Perspectives on Regulatory Reform.” Featured will be a keynote discussion by Jill E. Fisch, the Saul A. Fox Distinguished Professor of Business Law and Co-Director of the Institute for Law and Economics at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, as well as panels including more than a dozen experts from around the world.

The daylong conference will take place on Monday, October 16, in the Larry Walker Room of Dean Rusk Hall at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Sponsoring along with GJICL, a student-edited journal established more than 50 years ago, is the law school’s Dean Rusk International Law Center. GJICL Editor in Chief, 3L Jack Schlafly, worked with Professor Christopher M. Bruner, who is the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law and a newly appointed Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center; Center staff Sarah Quinn, Interim Director; Catrina Martin, Global Practice Preparation Assistant; and with the GJICL’s Faculty Advisor, Professor Harlan Grant Cohen, who is Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and one of the Center’s Faculty Co-Directors.

Below is the concept note of the conference:

We live in an era marked by complex and interconnected environmental, social, and economic crises, including climate change and various forms of destabilizing inequalities. Efforts to grapple with these realities are rapidly evolving and taking shape through a host of private and public institutions, both domestically and internationally, and an array of novel reform efforts aim to curb harmful corporate practices that have contributed to such crises.

Global asset managers have increasingly prioritized “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) factors – emphasizing their relation to investment risk and investment return – and have taken up existing tools available to them through corporate law, securities regulation, and capital market structures to push for change. Meanwhile, various types of domestic regulatory reforms have been adopted, or are under consideration, in jurisdictions around the world to promote “corporate sustainability,” understood to include environmental, social, and economic dimensions. Some reform initiatives focus on disclosure, reflecting confidence that investors, consumers, and other constituencies armed with sufficient information could differentiate between sustainable and unsustainable companies, and that these private actors would effectively reward the former and punish the latter. Other reform initiatives take more direct aim at decision-making incentives of managers and investors alike, through corporate governance structures creating novel – and potentially powerful – liability regimes intended to force both domestic and multinational businesses to internalize costs that would otherwise be externalized to society and the environment. At the same time, a host of international organizations have sought to promote ESG and corporate sustainability through a range of global standard-setting and coordination efforts.

This symposium will grapple with the array of ESG and corporate sustainability initiatives taking shape today, mapping this rapidly evolving global landscape and engaging with the host of complex international and comparative legal challenges they raise. Speakers offering a diverse range of doctrinal, institutional, and jurisdictional perspectives will tackle these issues through presentations and panel discussions focusing on capital market developments, corporate governance reform initiatives, and efforts to constrain multinational businesses.

The day’s events are as follows:

9:00-9:15am | Welcome Messages

Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge, Dean and Talmadge Chair of Law, University of Georgia School of Law

Sarah Quinn, Interim Director, Dean Rusk International Law Center

9:15-10:30am | Panel 1: ESG and Sustainable Finance

  • George S. Georgiev, Associate Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law
  • Virginia Harper Ho, Professor of Law, City University of Hong Kong (Zoom)
  • Stephen Park, Associate Professor of Business Law and Satell Fellow in Corporate Social Responsibility, University of Connecticut School of Business
  • Anne Tucker, Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law
  • Moderator: Usha Rodrigues, University Professor and M.E. Kilpatrick Chair of Corporate Finance and Securities Law, University of Georgia School of Law

10:30-10:45am | Break

10:45-12:00pm | Panel 2: Corporate Law, Corporate Governance and Sustainability

  • Matthew T. Bodie, Robins Kaplan Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
  • Andrew Johnston, Professor of Company Law and Corporate Governance, University of Warwick School of Law (UK) (Zoom)
  • Lindsay Sain Jones, Assistant Professor, University of Georgia Terry College of Business 
  • Omari Scott Simmons, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School 
  • Moderator: Christopher M. Bruner, Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law

12:00-1:00pm | Lunch

1:00-2:15pm | Panel 3: Multinational Corporations and Global Value Chains

  • Sarah Dadush, Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School (Zoom)
  • David Hess, Professor of Business Law and Business Ethics, University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business
  • Kish Parella, Class of 1960 Professor of Ethics and Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law (Zoom)
  • Jaakko Salminen, Associate Senior Lecturer, Department of Law, Lund University (Sweden) (Zoom)
  • Moderator: Harlan G. Cohen, Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law

2:15-2:30pm | Break

2:30-2:35pm | Keynote Introduction

Christopher M. Bruner, Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law

2:35-3:15pm | Keynote Address

Jill E. Fisch, Saul A. Fox Distinguished Professor of Business Law and Co-Director of the Institute for Law and Economics, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

3:15 | Closing Remarks

Jack Schlafly, Editor in Chief, Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law

Chase Sova, senior director of Public Policy and Research at World Food Program USA, speaks at UGA Law

Senior director of Public Policy and Research at World Food Program USA (WFP USA) Chase Sova spoke to students about the intersection of international law and policy as it relates to the global challenge of food insecurity Monday here at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Sova began his talk by explaining the relationship between WFP USA, a US-based non-profit organization, and the United Nations World Food Programme, which the WFP USA works to support stateside. He then discussed the global food insecurity landscape and how it is driven primarily by climate change, conflict, and economic disruptions, or shocks. Sova established links between international trade law and food insecurity, especially in the context of recent global events like the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He introduced students to the current debates about whether policies resulting in extreme food insecurity and starvation could be violations of international human rights law. Students were able to ask Sova questions about his educational background, his advice to those seeking careers in public service, and job opportunities for students interested in the work of the WFP USA.

Before his current position with WFP USA, Sova worked with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). He has consulted with the World Bank, Johns Hopkins, and Tufts University. Interested in the intersection of food insecurity and conflict, humanitarian assistance, climate change, and sustainable agriculture, Sova has worked on food systems in 15 developing countries across Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. He has led several major research initiatives including WFP USA’s Winning the Peace: Hunger and Instability flagship report. Sova has served as an expert witness at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his writing has been featured extensively in peer-reviewed journals, and he regularly lectures on food insecurity at Universities in Washington, D.C. He delivered a TEDx talk on “Winning the Long Game in the Fight to End Hunger” in 2018. Sova earned his Ph.D. from Oxford University.

This event was part of a visit organized by the UGA Office of Global Engagement under the leadership of the Associate Provost for Global Engagement, Martin Kagel, as part of the FYOS Global Citizenship Cluster series. It was cohosted by the Terry College of Business.

Alexander Campbell King Law Library hosts annual gathering for international students

Last Friday, international students at UGA Law gathered for an annual reception hosted by the Alexander Campbell King Law Library. International students in the J.D. program, Master of Laws (LL.M.) students, and exchange students from O.P. Jindal Global University Law School (JGLS) were invited to this social gathering to meet with each other and Law Library staff. This year, several LL.M. alumni/ae were in attendance, in addition to staff from the Dean Rusk International Law Center, the Center’s two Visiting Research Scholars, members of the Center’s Faculty Committee, and law faculty who teach classes for LL.M. students.

This event began in 2018 when Access Services Manager Marie Mize and Access Services Associate Szilvia Somodi proposed that the Law Library host a reception for the LL.M. students in order to introduce them to the law library staff and to talk about the library’s services. They and Foreign & International Law Librarian Anne Burnett planned the reception, which was first held September 11, 2018.

Over the years, this event has evolved in response to both students’ needs external circumstances. The event date was adjusted to accommodate the acculturative stress patterns of international students, who, Law Library staff learned, tend to experience homesickness around this time of the year. During the 2020-21 academic year, the Law Library held two virtual receptions in the fall and spring semesters to build community despite not being able to gather in person. In lieu of catered refreshments, Somodi and Mize assembled goodie bags that were made available for pickup in the Law Library for the week surrounding the virtual events.

Beginning in 2022, the Law Library expanded the event to include all international students in the J.D. program and Visiting Research Scholars. This year, the first two exchange students from UGA Law’s partnership with JGLS joined, in addition to several LL.M. alumni/ae. Somodi and Mize continue to be crucial to the planning and execution of the event, with the broader support of the library’s Student Engagement Team.

This event shines a spotlight on the relationship between the Law Library and UGA Law’s community of international students, emphasizing that they are welcome and encouraged to use the library’s facilities and services— and that the Law Library staff is glad they are here.

UGA Law clinics continue efforts on behalf of immigrant women alleging abuse, retaliation while in ICE detention

The University of Georgia School of Law clinics’ faculty and students, including Jason A. Cade, Associate Dean for Clinical Programs and Experiential Learning, and Kristen Shepherd, Community Health Law Partnership Clinic Staff Attorney of the Community HeLP Clinic, have continued their advocacy on behalf of women clients who are challenging the abuses they endured while in U.S. immigration detention.

As previously posted UGA Law’s Community HeLP Clinic and First Amendment Clinic have pursued administrative, judicial, and advocacy paths in support of women who had been in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Irwin Detention Center, a privately run facility in south Georgia. While there, the women were subjected to nonconsensual medical procedures. Those who spoke out were met with retaliatory acts, including attempted or actual removal from the United States. For more than two years, the UGA Law clinics have represented these women in judicial and administrative proceedings.

The Community HeLP Clinic made significant progress in recent months on behalf of several women who experienced nonconsensual medical procedures while detained by ICE. These efforts included ongoing advocacy before a State Clemency Office, representation before immigration court on behalf of a woman who was unjustly deported, and successful advocacy before the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen a third woman’s removal proceedings. The Clinic continues to represent these women and others in a putative class action lawsuit relevant to their allegations of medical abuse and retaliation. More information on these successes and engagements can be found here.

The Community HeLP Clinic is centered around interdisciplinary advocacy that focuses on immigration status and health, noncitizen workers and detainees, and public education. Along with overseeing the law school’s 11 in-house clinics and 7 externship programs, Cade directs the Clinic and aids law students in undertaking an interdisciplinary approach to immigrants’ rights through individual client representation, litigation, and project-based advocacy before administrative agencies and federal courts. Shepherd supervises students as they engage in a variety of services including interviewing and advising clients, conducting research and drafting legal documents, advocating in court proceedings and administrative hearings, and collaborating with legal and medical professionals in the community.

Nomsa Ndongwe, Research Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, speaks at UGA Law

James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) Research Fellow Nomsa Ndongwe spoke to students about careers in international law and contemporary security challenges Wednesday here at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Joined by UGA alumna and CNS Research Associate Tricia White, Ndongwe discussed her own career trajectory and current work in nonproliferation at CNS. Both Ndongwe and White identified several skills aspiring international lawyers can work towards in law school, including learning languages and developing subject matter expertise. Ndongwe championed the importance of professional networking, building relationships with peers, and making use of the resources available to students at UGA Law, like the Career Development Office and the Dean Rusk International Law Center. She also answered student questions about the Russian war in Ukraine, space law, maritime law, and global nuclear security challenges.

Ndongwe is a Co-founder of the WCAPS West Coast Chapter, and an N-Square Innovators Network Fellow 2020 – 2021. As of January 2022, she co-leads the CNS Young Women in Nonproliferation Initiative, is a School of International Futures Mentor 2023, and served as a Girl Security mentor. She is also a part of the P5 –Young Professionals Network (YPN) 2022-2023 cohort. She has a Master of Arts in Nonproliferation, Terrorism Studies, and Financial Crime Management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. She obtained her first degree, an LLB Single (Hons) degree at Brunel University, and her Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (LPC) from the University of Law in Guildford, UK.

Previously, she served as diplomat for the Zimbabwe Permanent Mission to the United Nations Office at Geneva, focusing mainly on the Disarmament portfolio and International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Nomsa is a featured non-proliferation panelist/moderator for the Ploughshares Foundation, Harvard Belfer Center, Trinity College DC, United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) New York, Naval Postgraduate School, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), N Square Innovators Network and Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

This event was cosponsored by the International Law Society and the UGA Law Career Development Office.

First Legal Spanish Course Offered at UGA Law This Fall

This fall, UGA Law students have the opportunity to enroll in a new Legal Spanish course taught by Professor Kristen Shepherd, Community Health Law Partnership Clinic Staff Attorney & Adjunct Instructor.

Professor Shepherd conceptualized and proposed the course as two consecutive courses, Legal Spanish I and Legal Spanish II, both offered for one credit. Each course teaches students Spanish language skills used in legal settings with a focus on listening and speaking comprehension. They also provide students with a broad overview of the basics of the legal systems in Spanish-speaking countries to enable students to communicate legal concepts more accurately and efficiently.

The opportunity for students to learn Spanish for use in legal careers has taken several forms over the past decade at UGA Law. It began as a club led by Pedro Dorado (J.D. ‘17, LL.M. ‘15) before moving to a lunchtime study session led by two students who had completed Global Externships, one in a Spanish-speaking country. During the pandemic, Legal Spanish once again became a club that met regularly on Zoom.

Across changes in instructors and format, the ability to hone Spanish language skills specific to the legal profession has continued to be a goal that students felt strongly about institutionalizing. Third-year student Patricia Fors was a driving force behind turning this club into a for-credit course. Since Spring 2022, Ms. Fors has worked with Center faculty and staff to communicate the student demand for the course and to provide a student perspective on the course proposals.

“There is a high demand for attorneys able to effectively communicate with Spanish-speaking clients,” Ms. Fors communicated to us in an email. “I’m incredibly proud to attend a law school committed to breaking down one of the barriers that Hispanic communities face accessing the legal system.”

Professor Shepherd agreed with Ms. Fors’ sentiment, stating: “I am inspired by the student movement that led to this course—it is a reflection of our students’ dedication to providing first rate legal representation to a traditionally underserved population with diligence and sensitivity. I am confident that this will lead to better legal outcomes and client relationships.”

The inaugural course enrolled 17 students, all of whom speak conversational Spanish. Not only will they benefit from this new course, but so will the clients and communities they work with across their careers.

For more information about Legal Spanish, please contact Professor Shepherd.

UGA Professor Ramnath publishes first book, “Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942–1962”

Kalyani Ramnath, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the Franklin College of Arts & Sciences and Assistant Professor (by courtesy) at UGA Law, is publishing her first book, Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942–1962, with Stanford University Press.

Below is a description of the book:

For more than century before World War II, traders, merchants, financiers, and laborers steadily moved between places on the Indian Ocean, trading goods, supplying credit, and seeking work. This all changed with the war and as India, Burma, Ceylon, and Malaya wrested independence from the British empire. Set against the tumult of the postwar period, Boats in a Storm centers on the legal struggles of migrants to retain their traditional rhythms and patterns of life, illustrating how they experienced citizenship and decolonization. Even as nascent citizenship regimes and divergent political trajectories of decolonization papered over migrations between South and Southeast Asia, migrants continued to recount cross-border histories in encounters with the law. These accounts, often obscured by national and international political developments, unsettle the notion that static national identities and loyalties had emerged, fully formed and unblemished by migrant pasts, in the aftermath of empires.

Drawing on archival materials from India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, London, and Singapore, Kalyani Ramnath narrates how former migrants battled legal requirements to revive prewar circulations of credit, capital, and labor, in a postwar context of rising ethno-nationalisms that accused migrants of stealing jobs and hoarding land. Ultimately, Ramnath shows how decolonization was marked not only by shipwrecked empires and nation-states assembled and ordered from the debris of imperial collapse, but also by these forgotten stories of wartime displacements, their unintended consequences, and long afterlives.

On September 21 at 4:00 pm, at the University of Georgia Zell Miller Learning Center, a book release and reception will be held in honor of Professor Ramnath’s work. This event is open to the public.

UGA Law professor Diane Marie Amann and UCL Professor Martins Paparinskis

UGA Law Professor Amann presents “Child-Taking and the International Criminal Arrest Warrant” at University College London Faculty of Laws

University of Georgia School of Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, an expert on child and human rights, international criminal law, and the laws of war, presented a lecture entitled “Child-Taking and the International Criminal Arrest Warrant” at University College London Faculty of Laws in June.

News that the International Criminal Court is seeking the arrest of Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, and Child Rights Commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, drew attention to the war crimes charged: “unlawful deportation of population (children)” and “unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas.” Professor Amann’s lecture examined these and similar crimes, which she labels “child-taking.” International child-taking trials date to the Nuremberg tribunals, and have continued in modern forums like the ICC. Court records demonstrate that child-taking is no minor crime. Its present gravity and future consequences are heavy; so too, the prosecutorial burdens of securing indictments, conviction, and redress.

This presentation was chaired by UCL Professor of Public International Law, Martins Paparinskis.

Amann is the Regents’ Professor of International Law, the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and a Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.

Welcoming Mine Turhan, Visiting Scholar at UGA Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center

We at the University of Georgia School of Law Dean Rusk International Law Center are pleased to welcome a new Visiting Research Scholar: Mine Turhan, Assistant Professor of Administrative Law in the Faculty of Law at the Izmir University of Economics in Türkiye. She holds an LL.M. degree and a Ph.D. in Public Law from Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir, Türkiye.

Professor Turhan plans to conduct research on comparative administrative procedure between the United States and the European Union during her stay at the Dean Rusk International Law Center. Her project will focus on procedural due process rights, in particular the right to be heard before administrative agencies, and it will analyze how individual rights are protected by different procedures in the U.S. and the European Union against arbitrary actions on the part of administrative agencies.

Professor Turhan is sponsored as a Visiting Research Scholar by UGA Law Professor David E. Shipley, the Georgia Athletic Association Professor in Law. Professor Shipley teaches administrative law and civil procedure.

Turhan’s research is supported by a fellowship from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK) within the scope of the International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program. Her visit continues our Center’s long tradition of hosting scholars and researchers whose work touches on issues of international, comparative, or transnational law. Details and an online application to become a visiting scholar here.