Christopher M. Bruner, Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, recently presented working papers in Canada and Sweden.
He presented “Corporate Governance and Sustainability Incentives” at a conference titled “Addressing the Sustainability Impacts of Corporations” in October. The conference was hosted by the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security at the Osgoode Hall Law School (York University) in Toronto.
Bruner also presented “Corporate Personhood, Corporate Rights, and the Contingency of Corporate Law” at “Decoding the Rights of Companies in the Technocene,” a conference hosted in December by the Lund University Faculty of Law in Lund, Sweden.
Bruner’s scholarship focuses on corporate law, corporate governance, comparative law and sustainability. He is a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and has presented his work in numerous countries around the world.
Distinguished Research Professor & Shackelford Distinguished Professor in Taxation Law Emeritus Walter Hellerstein co-presented a paper on the value added taxation of crypto-assets at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Working Party No. 9 on Consumption Taxes in Paris, France, in November.
The Working Party No. 9 on Consumption Taxes is a forum for the discussion of consumption tax policy and administration, working with both Members and non-Members of the OECD to develop appropriate and effective taxation outcomes.
Hellerstein, a recipient of the National Tax Association’s Daniel M. Holland Medal for outstanding lifetime contributions to the study and practice of public finance, is widely regarded as the nation’s leading academician on state and local taxation. He has authored numerous books, textbooks, and law review articles, and has practiced extensively in the field. Hellerstein is currently a Visiting Professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and he remains actively involved in his scholarship, consulting, and, in particular, his work as an academic advisor to the OECD.
One of the Dean Rusk International Law Center’s current Visiting Research Scholars, Daesun Kim, Esq., attended this week’s Global Atlanta event, “Georgia and Japan: 50 Years of Commerce and Culture — Debriefing on the 2023 SEUS-Japan Conference.” Global Atlanta is one of the Center’s institutional partners. Below are some of Kim’s reflections of the event.
Global Atlanta, Baker Donelson, and the Japan-America Society of Georgiagathered on November 30 to discuss the October 2023 SEUS-Japan Conference. Around 50 economic and development leaders from Georgia participated in the October conference, which took place in Tokyo for the first time since COVID and included representatives from the 16 states in the Southeastern United States (SEUS). The visit by the Georgia delegation, in particular, holds significant meaning as it coincides with the 50th anniversary, commemorating the longstanding tradition and history between Japan and the state of Georgia.
The speakers at this week’s event, who reflected on their experience visiting Japan as part of this delegation, included:
Bob Johnson, immigration attorney at Baker Donelson, and board member of the Japan-America Society of Georgia
Trevor Williams, Managing Editor at Global Atlanta (moderator)
Jim Whitcomb, Chair of the Japan-America Society of Georgia
Jessica Cork, VP of Community Engagement and Communications at YKK, who was honored with the Busbee Award
Mellissa Takeuchi, Project Manager at the Georgia Department of Economic Development
The panelists’ takeaways from the SEUS-Japan Conference included the level of significance attributed to developing and maintaining personal connections with various government high-level officials. Georgia is a hub for Japanese businesses in the southeastern United States, with currently more than 500 Japanese-affiliated companies operating in the state, including YKK (USA) America, Inc., Kubota Manufacturing of America Corp., NACOM Corporation, and Yamaha Motor Mfg. Corp. of America. These officials see their establishment of personal and professional connections as significant contributors to the enhancement of economic and diplomatic cooperation.
These relationships are of particular importance for Georgia, whose Savannah Port acts as a gateway between Japan and the southeastern region of the U.S and thus plays a crucial role in the auto-EV-battery supply chain. It is anticipated that all states within SEUS will contribute to this industry’s growth; in particular, the panelists saw the development of certain business relationships, such as Toyota’s automotive and EV battery ventures, as important outcomes of the SEUS-Japan Conference.
Takeuchi highlighted the significance of the longstanding 50-year collaboration between SEUS and Japan. She noted a renewed energy from Japan to engage more actively and collaborate further with SEUS following the recent Japan visit. Additionally, she noted the importance of the Georgia-kai, a Georgia-based organization of Japanese expatriates, which holds a pivotal role in the state’s continued engagement with both existing and prospective Japanese industries.
The panelists agreed that Georgia and Japan’s growing relationship across economic, business, diplomatic, and cultural sectors is a direct result of this mutual investment in sustained communication and relationship building, the direct result of initiatives like the SEUS-Japan Conference.
Mandy Dixon is the new International Professional Education Manager at the University of Georgia School of Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center. She assumed the new position on November 20.
Since November 2016, Dixon has served as the Center’s International Professional Education Assistant. Her portfolio included: processing and preparing incoming applications for the Master of Laws (LL.M.) program, assisting incoming international students with university requirements, coordinating the logistics for both the Visiting Research Scholars (VRS) and international judicial trainings initiatives, and assisting with event planning at the Center (including conferences, speakers, and trainings).
As International Professional Education Manager, Dixon will serve as the lead of the International Professional Education (IPE) portfolio. Specifically, she will now manage the recruitment and admissions process for the LL.M. program and will provide oversight for the VRS and international judicial trainings initiatives.
Before joining the Center, Dixon worked for nine years at Mozley Finlayson & Loggins, LLP in Atlanta as a Human Resources and Bookkeeping Assistant. She also worked as a Paralegal and Legal Assistant at Warshauer Thornton & Easom, P.C., and Lokey, Mobley and Doyle, Attorneys at Law, respectively. She received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Georgia, where she was a member of the Redcoat Marching Band for four years. In her free time, Dixon enjoys playing the bluegrass banjo, learning about history, and engaging in genealogical research.
Laura Phillips-Sawyer, Jane W. Wilson Associate Professor in Business Law, recently had her review essay titled “Revisiting Interwar Global Economic Governance: Technocrats, Sovereignty, and the Perennial Problem of Legitimacy in Global Governance” published online by Cambridge University Press. Phillips-Sawyer is an expert in U.S. antitrust law and policy, and her scholarship is related to questions of economic regulation, which intersect with legal history, economic thought, business strategy and structure, and political organization.
“These two extraordinary books, written by historians of international political economy, reject that failure narrative, at least in part. While it is of course true that the League of Nations failed to stem the Great Depression or quell the forces leading to World War II, the League fundamentally changed international law. Most notably, the League represented a turn away from empire and toward international institutions, which have governed global capitalism through “technocratic internationalism” ever since (Mulder, p. 21; Martin, p. 30). Historians have too often overlooked interwar international institution-building and the steady growth of administrative rule-making because of that failure narrative. Nonetheless, recent scholarship has highlighted the novel approaches that interwar international institutions took to managing international public health, migration, drug prohibition, contraband, and colonial supervision (Martin, pp. 8, 269n21). Building on a thriving subfield of “interwar internationalism,” Mulder and Martin both argue that the First World War marked a decisive turning point in global capitalism as new international institutions eroded the power and authority of empires and created a new category of “international economic regulation” (Mulder, p. 10; Martin, p. 8). Mulder focuses on the development of economic sanctions, which were first deployed in peacetime by the League of Nations in the wake of World War I, and explains how they became commonplace despite highly undesirable and unanticipated effects. Martin shows how international institutions intervened in global capital and commodity markets in ways that shaped and limited domestic policies, especially for states with uncertain or partial sovereignty. Both books show how the devices of economic regulation developed first under the auspices of empire were repurposed for the use of international institutions and then deployed first at the periphery and then on the European continent. The bottom line is that these were novel forms of organization and intervention, which rewrote international law and laid the groundwork for post-World War II “second wave” iterations of global governance (Martin, p. 3). The League may have failed, but not for lack of power and it—alongside other international groups—left an indelible mark on global governance.”
Prior posts on Phillips-Sawyer’s scholarship can be found here.
As posted previously, speakers representing a diverse range of doctrinal, institutional, and jurisdictional perspectives gathered on October 16 to discuss the array of contemporary ESG and corporate sustainability initiatives, mapping this rapidly evolving global landscape and engaging with the host of complex international and comparative legal challenges they raise.
Keynoting the conference was University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law Professor Jill E. Fisch, Saul A. Fox Distinguished Professor of Business Law; Co-Director, Institute for Law & Economics.
The video links are as follows:
Introduction and Panel 1: ESG and Sustainable Finance, with Usha Rodrigues, University Professor and M.E. Kilpatrick Chair of Corporate Finance and Securities Law, University of Georgia School of Law; George S. Georgiev, Associate Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law; Virginia Harper Ho, Professor of Law, City University of Hong Kong; Stephen Park, Associate Professor of Business Law and Satell Fellow in Corporate Social Responsibility, University of Connecticut School of Business; and Anne Tucker, Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law.
Panel 2: Corporate Law, Corporate Governance and Sustainability, with 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; 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; Lindsay Sain Jones, Assistant Professor, University of Georgia Terry College of Business; and Omari Scott Simmons, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School.
Panel 3: Multinational Corporations and Global Value Chains, with 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 (and the GJICL’s Faculty Advisor); Sarah Dadush, Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School; 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; and Jaakko Salminen, Associate Senior Lecturer, Department of Law, Lund University.
Keynote Addressby 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
This event was cosponsored by the Dean Rusk International Law Center.
During the week of November 13, the University of Georgia School of Law will host events during the lunch hour to highlight International Education Week (IEW) 2023. IEW is a joint initiative between the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education that celebrates the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide. The theme for 2023 is “International Education Is the Future.”
All events will take place from 12-1pm. Exact locations can be found in the event hyperlinks. The events for the week are as follows:
India is an emerging global economic superpower. Gaining academic or professional experience in India will prepare UGA Law students for the future of the global workforce. Learn from a panel of current J.D., Master of Laws (LL.M.), and exchange students about their experiences learning about and practicing law in India:
In an increasingly globalized world, and in the globalizing field of law, international experience is a valuable part of your CV as a law student. Join a panel discussion about how international experiences can set you apart, and importantly, how you can market that experience to recruiters and interviewers during your job search and career. Panelists will include:
Andrew Arrington, 3L, completed a Global Externship Overseas at Sorainen in Tallinn, Estonia
Brandy Blue, Interim Senior Program Associate, Conflict Resolution Program, The Carter Center
Jean Rowe Luciani, UGA Law Assistant Director of Career Development (J.D., 1997)
Current Master of Laws (LL.M.) students will discuss their experiences as women practicing law in African countries. This event will take place in room E/ 252 of Hirsch Hall. Panelists will include:
University of Georgia School of Law alumnus Dr. Kannan Rajarathinam (LL.M., ’88) spoke to students last week about the future of the United Nations in a multipolar world in a lecture entitled, “The UN at a Crossroads.”
Rajarathinam used his decades of experience working at the UN to frame his central question of what lies ahead for the international organization. Founded in 1945, the UN’s main focus over the past 80 years has remained the same: to provide all nations with the opportunity to work together to find shared solutions to shared challenges. From supporting refugees to providing food and vaccines globally, the UN has many ongoing campaigns that realize this vision.
One area where he felt the UN had been particularly successful is in building awareness of and consensus around the global challenge of climate change. He noted that the UN has led over twenty conferences on climate change, and, as a direct result of their commitment to this topic, climate security is a top concern for many western nations. Although there is still much work to be done, Rajarathinam stated that shared solutions, like a fund being developed to aid the Global South in managing the disproportionately-felt effects of climate change and technology-sharing to establish renewable energy systems worldwide, are more likely to find consensus due to the inclusive design of the UN.
There are many challenges to the UN’s role in the new multipolar landscape, including the emergence of regionally-focused forums like BRICS and the G20, international development initiatives like China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and ongoing conflicts like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war. Rajarathinam believes that the ability of the UN to offer all 193 Member States from India to Nauru an equal vote is its main strength in withstanding this contemporary power shift. He concluded his talk by observing that, now that we are entering into a multipolar global landscape, no one country has the ability to control history anymore – and that, as a result, the world will be more colorful.
After his afternoon lecture, Rajarathinam met with current LL.M. students to discuss his career in the UN. Students shared their backgrounds and professional aspirations and were able to get advice from Rajarathinam and his wife, Usha.
Rajarathinam recently retired after nearly three decades of UN peace keeping and political work in the former Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia. Prior to the UN, he briefly practiced and taught law in India. A commentator of international and political affairs in India, he is the author of two political biographies of Indian leaders and his next work, on the political history of his state of Tamil Nadu in India is due next summer.
University of Georgia School of Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, whose expertise includes child rights, international criminal law, and global legal history, recently discussed her research on “child-taking” at two universities in the United Kingdom.
At the end of September Amann – who is Regents’ Professor of Law, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center – presented “Child-Taking and Human Rights Law” at the 2023 European Human Rights Law Conference. Entitled “Human Rights Law: Prospects, Possibilities, Fears & Limitations,” the two-day conference took place at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law.
Both talks drew from Amann’s forthcoming article, “Child-Taking,” to be published in the Michigan Journal of International Law.
As Amann theorizes it, child-taking occurs when a state or similarly powerful entity abducts children from their community and then endeavors to remake the children in its own image. This conduct lies at the heart of the International Criminal Court warrants pending against President Vladimir Putin and another top Russian official. The article also examines other examples of the phenomenon, including the Nazis’ kidnappings of non-German children during World War II and the forced placement of Indigenous children into boarding schools in North America, Australia, and elsewhere.
Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law & Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center Harlan Grant Cohen spoke to International Law Society (ILS) members in late September as part of an ongoing brown bag lunch series with international law faculty at UGA Law.
Cohen provided the students in attendance with an introduction to his current research. He then outlined his path into academia and offered students insight into the spectrum of professional opportunities within the field of international law, noting fast-growing sectors like export controls, CFIUS issues, and space law. He also offered some reflections on the changing nature of the field, including the recent trend of withdrawal from international organizations and treaties; the emergence of new centers of power that challenge norms in international law; and increasing economic competition influencing international law through mechanisms such as trade rules and sanctions. Cohen encouraged student questions to drive the majority of the conversation, providing career and networking advice throughout the discussion. He recommended that students interested in international law enroll in the spring Public International Law course, attend conferences and get involved in international law organizations, and try to learn a second language if possible.
ILS President, 2L Madison Graham, spearheaded this series with the intention of orienting new law students towards the international law faculty. She hopes to expand the student body’s definition of what international law means and to bring their attention to the academic achievements of the international law faculty here at UGA Law.
ILS is the student chapter of the International Law Students Association, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that for decades has provided students with opportunities to study, research, and network in the international law arena through conferences, publications, and administration of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. At UGA Law, ILS hosts events and projects designed to stimulate and advance understand of international, comparative, foreign, and transnational law and institutions. ILS’ faculty advisor is Diane Marie Amann, Regents’ Professor of International Law, Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center.
exchange of notes 