United Nations

Georgia Law Professor MJ Durkee publishes article on industry groups and international governance in Journal of Human Rights and the Environment

Professor Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, who is the Associate Dean for International Programs, Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, and Allen Post Professor here at the University of Georgia School of Law, has published “Industry Groups in International Governance: A Framework for Reform” in the bi-annual, peer-reviewed Journal of Human Rights and the Environment.

Here’s the abstract:

“The Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights encourage engaging with businesses as partners in important global governance agendas. Indeed, many international organizations are now partnering with business groups to secure funding and private sector engagement. At the same time, reforms at the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization and others seek to restrain the dangers of mission distortion and capture by business groups. Shareholders at major multinational oil and gas companies also recognize these dangers and seek to rein in lobbying that is at odds with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. Despite these tensions, little scholarly attention has been paid to the regulations that govern how industry and trade groups may participate in the work of international organizations. Specifically, little attention has been devoted to how those regulations could best capture the potential benefits of business engagement while restraining the potential harms. This article offers a history of engagement between international organizations and industry and trade associations, reviews arguments for embracing or restraining their participation, and develops a framework for regulations to govern their access.”

A version of this new article also is available at SSRN.

Georgia Law Professor Hellerstein gives presentation on e-commerce and taxation at UNCTAD meeting

Walter Hellerstein, Distinguished Research Professor & Shackelford Distinguished Professor in Taxation Law Emeritus here at the University of Georgia School of Law, presented last week at an online meeting organized by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Hellerstein spoke on “Main Issues on E-Commerce and Taxation” as part of a 2-day the online Ad Hoc Expert Group Meeting on Electronic Commerce and Taxation. This principal presentation helped to set the stage by providing an overview of the issues relevant for e-commerce taxation.

Dean Rusk International Law Center hosts “International Law and the Ukraine-Russia Conflict,” featuring Georgia Law Professors Amann, Cohen, and Durkee

Nearly a hundred members of the University of Georgia School of Law community took part Wednesday in “International Law and the Ukraine-Russia Conflict,” a forum hosted by our Dean Rusk International Law Center and presented by three international law experts on the law school’s faculty.

The armed conflict began on February 24, 2022, when Russian military troops invaded the neighboring state of Ukraine, entering the latter country at points on its northern, eastern, and southern borders. At this writing just a week later, thousands of persons, civilians and combatants alike, reportedly had been killed, and, according to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, more than a million Ukrainians had been forcibly displaced.

At Wednesday’s forum, each of the three Georgia Law professors first offered a brief overview of a particular aspect of the armed conflict:

  • Our Center’s Director, Melissa J. “MJ” Durkee, who is also Associate Dean for International Programs and Allen Post Professor, began by outlining the international rules that have outlawed aggressive war – that is, one country’s unjustified invasion of another – since the adoption of the 1945 Charter of the United Nations. She explained why reasons that Russia has put forward do not constitute legally valid justifications for the invasion, and further emphasized the threat that Russia’s actions place on the international rules-based order that came into being after the Allied victory in World War II. In so doing, Durkee cited a UN General Assembly resolution, adopted Wednesday by a huge majority of votes, which condemned Russia’s actions as violative of this order.
  • Next came Harlan Grant Cohen, who is Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and one of our Center’s 2 Faculty Co-Directors. Cohen focused on economic sanctions that have been levied against Russia in the last week, by individual countries including the United States and also by international organizations including the European Union. While noting that these types of economic actions had been developed in response to Iran’s nuclear program, Cohen stressed that the extent and impact of the sanctions already imposed against Russia is unprecedented.
  • Then followed our Center’s other Faculty Co-Director, Diane Marie Amann, who is also Regents’ Professor of International Law and Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law. She addressed international humanitarian law, the body of law concerned with the ways that armies and armed groups actually conduct the war. She underscored that this body of law concerns itself with all sides of the conflict, regardless of who started the conflict: fighters on either side may be found liable for violations, and thus charged with war crimes. Amann concluded with a look at forums already engaged to review legal issues arising out of the war, among them the European Court of Human Rights, International Criminal Court, and International Court of Justice.

The forum concluded with a lively and wide-ranging question-and-answer period.

UGA Professor Peters presents to judges in Uzbekistan about social media

Pleased today to welcome a contribution from Jonathan Peters, an associate professor who has faculty appointments in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and the School of Law at the University of Georgia. (prior posts) Professor Peters teaches and researches in the area of media law and policy, and his post here discusses his participation April 19 in an online training event hosted in Uzbekistan.

I was honored recently to deliver a presentation to judges and court staff in Uzbekistan about using social media to engage with the public and press. The event was hosted by the Supreme Judicial Council of the Republic of Uzbekistan, as part of a project facilitated by the U.N. Development Programme and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

One purpose of the project, called the “Rule of Law Partnership in Uzbekistan,” is to strengthen public access to the nation’s judicial system as well as public trust in it. And a key priority has been to grow citizen knowledge of the courts and to improve the society’s legal culture and the population’s overall legal literacy.

To those ends, I shared an American perspective on how U.S. judges and courts—at the federal and state levels—use social media. Courts often use Twitter and Facebook to share information, and judges often use them to humanize themselves and to discuss matters of trial and appellate practice with other members of the legal profession. Over 42 percent of court public information officers reported in a recent survey that using social media is essential for courts to communicate with the public. As one put it:

There is an emerging recognition among courts that in order to fulfill the requirement that courts are transparent and understandable to the public in the new media age we are in, courts will have to play an active role in facilitating access to information and perform many of the same functions that traditionally have been performed by the now dwindling traditional media.

Judicial ethics codes even encourage judges to engage with their communities in various ways. For example, Canon 4 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges says that a “judge may … speak, write, lecture, and teach on both law-related and nonlegal subjects.” The associated commentary says that “[c]omplete separation of a judge from extrajudicial activities is neither possible nor wise; a judge should not become isolated from the society in which the judge lives.”

But judges must be careful on social media not to run afoul of certain limits on their extrajudicial speech, namely those on ex parte communications and their ability to comment on cases pending before them. They also must avoid activities that would reflect adversely on their impartiality or independence. As I told the judges in Uzbekistan, recognizing the risks posed by specific types of content will enable them to create and maintain a social-media presence that is effective and productive—and respectful of the unique responsibilities of a judge.

University of Georgia Professor Jonathan Peters, of Grady College and School of Law, presents on press freedom to court personnel and journalists in Uzbekistan

Pleased today to welcome a contribution from Jonathan Peters, an associate professor who has faculty appointments in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and the School of Law here at the University of Georgia. Professor Peters teaches and researches in the area of media law and policy, and his post here discusses his participation December 3 in an online training event hosted in Uzbekistan.

I was delighted recently to deliver two virtual presentations to court personnel and journalists in Uzbekistan, as part of a project facilitated by the United Nations Development Programme and supported by the United States Agency for International Development and the Supreme Court of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

The purpose of the project, called the “Rule of Law Partnership in Uzbekistan,” is to strengthen public access to the nation’s judicial system as well as public trust in it. One related priority has been to improve citizen knowledge of the courts and to encourage collaboration between court personnel and journalists. This has enabled the local media to tour Uzbekistan’s regional courts and to learn about international practices in court-journalist relations.

To those ends, I delivered presentations to a group of journalists and court personnel, including members of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Uzbekistan, on U.S. rights of access to courts and how American journalists cover legal issues. First, I discussed the tension between the First and Sixth Amendments and the various reasons that U.S. courts have generally protected media rights of access to judicial proceedings and records.

For example, the U.S. Supreme Court has observed repeatedly the historical importance of public trials and has reasoned that openness improves a trial’s functioning, that it has therapeutic value by “providing an outlet for community concern, hostility and emotion,” and that it enhances the public’s acceptance that justice is being done.

Moreover, in significant part, American journalists exercise their First Amendment rights as surrogates of the public when reporting on courts. As Justice Lewis F. Powell put it in Saxbe v. Washington Post Co., in his dissent: “For most citizens, the prospect of personal familiarity with newsworthy events is hopelessly unrealistic. In seeking out the news, the press therefore acts as an agent of the public at large. It is the means by which the people receive the … information and ideas essential to intelligent self-government.”

Then, in my second presentation, on how American journalists cover legal issues, I explored how the rule of law is preserved partly by public knowledge of court decisions and activities, and thus the media is a critical link between the judiciary and the public. So it is democratically important for journalists to explain what courts are doing and why—and to convey the implications (if any) for the public.

That means the journalists must be able to translate legal terms and concepts for a lay audience, and they must be able to distill into a short news story a complex legal action. It is also helpful for them to develop sources in the court system, while appreciating and respecting the ethical limits within which judges, lawyers, and court aides usually work.

After these remarks, the Q&A session opened up conversations among the journalists and court personnel in attendance, allowing us to have a dialogue on some of the issues most pressing for them. I hope the ultimate result is a more open judiciary and a freer press in Uzbekistan.

Georgia Law Professor Christopher Bruner presents to International Monetary Fund on corporations and sustainability

Professor Christopher Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, recently presented “The Corporation as Technology: Re-Calibrating Corporate Governance for a Sustainable Future” to the International Monetary Fund, a 75-year-old organization of 189 countries that, operating within the United Nations system, works to “foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.”

Bruner’s online presentation was organized by the IMF Legal Department and moderated by Rhoda Weeks-Brown, Director of the Legal Department and the IMF’s General Counsel.  Attendees included staff lawyers and economists from across the IMF.

His talk was based on the book that he is currently writing, which is due to be published by Oxford University Press next year.

Expert in international migration law and policy, Oslo-based Tom Syring, gives talks at Georgia Law

Migration and the rule of law, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, was the topic du jour yesterday at the University of Georgia School of Law, thanks to guest lectures by Tom Syring, Chairman of the Human Rights Research League, based in Oslo, Norway.

As the 2020 American-Scandinavian Foundation Visiting Lecturer, Syring is an expert in international refugee and migration law and policy, and co-editor, with Boston University Law Professor Susan Akram, of Still Waiting for Tomorrow: The Law and Politics of Unresolved Refugee Crises (2014). His visit to Georgia Law was part of a 2-month lecture and teaching tour that also includes stops in U.S. locations including Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Texas.

Following his public, lunch-hour talk on “Refugees, Forced Migration, and Africa,” Syring met with students in the Refugee & Asylum Law seminar (pictured above) led by Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann.

Together, the talks set forth:

Syring ended on a high note, pointing to the promising potential represented by countries in Africa, a continent rich in resources and a young, vibrant populace.

Cosponsors of the visit, in addition to Georgia Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center and the American-Scandinavian Foundation, included two University of Georgia units, the African Studies Institute and the School of Public & International Affairs.

Special thanks are due to all those affiliated with Georgia Law who supported Syring’s visit: Mandy Dixon, Catrina Martin, Brad Grove, Sarah Quinn, Heidi Murphy, and Laura Kagel, as well as Professors Lori Ringhand and Harlan Cohen.

UGA Professor Jonathan Peters Participates in Expert Workshop on the ICCPR at Cambridge

JP headshot (1).jpgJonathan Peters, a media law professor with appointments in the School of Law and the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, was among 34 scholars, policy leaders, and United Nations officials who participated in an expert workshop last week at the University of Cambridge on the right to peaceful assembly.

2019-12-04_11-36-49_243The workshop’s purpose was to support the U.N. Human Rights Committee by informing its drafting of General Comment No. 37 on Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 21 guarantees the right of peaceful assembly, and the General Comment will provide an authoritative interpretation of that right as well as substantive guidance to ensure its practical enjoyment.

One significant open question is whether General Comment No. 37 will recognize the Internet as a space where assemblies occur—on social media platforms and through other information and communication technologies. Participants exchanged ideas about whether and how Article 21 could be interpreted to protect virtual assemblies.

Peters, whose research explores digital media and the law, discussed the state action doctrine in U.S. law and how it distinguishes public and private action, along with the history and evolution of the public forum doctrine and its application to physical and virtual spaces.

Other workshop participants came from the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law, the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, Amnesty International, Article 19, and numerous universities.

Georgia Law Professor Amann’s UN Audiovisual Lecture marks 30th anniversary of Child Rights Convention

This week’s global commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child includes a special contribution from a Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law:

The United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law has just published “Child Rights, Conflict, and International Criminal Justice,” a lecture by Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, holder of the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law. As described in prior posts, Amann’s expertise in this field extends to her service as Special Adviser to International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict; that said, she produced this lecture in her personal capacity.

Amann’s 41-minute lecture was taped 8 November 2019 at the Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs, UN Headquarters, New York. It is available in video (here) and audio formats (SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts).

As Amann posted at her personal blog, the lecture begins by setting forth particular harms that children endure in armed conflict and similar violence. It proceeds to trace the developments in child rights that led to adoption, on 20 November 1989, of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Next, it describes parallel developments in two other key legal fields, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. After looking at relevant provisions of the Child Rights Convention and other instruments – in particular, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – the lecture concludes by evaluating efforts to ensure the rights of the child by preventing and punishing international crimes against and affecting children.

Also provided at Amann’s AVL Faculty Page is a list of related materials on which her lecture relies.

Amann said this about the treaty that is enjoying a celebration, in Wednesday’s “World Children’s Day” and throughout this week:

“As for the 1989 Child Rights Convention itself – today it has 196 parties, including the Holy See, the State of Palestine, and every UN member state except the United States of America. Because of its nearly universal acceptance, as well as its comprehensive contents, the Convention has served for the last thirty years as the pre-eminent global charter on child rights and protection.”

2019 Global Governance Summer School concludes with briefings at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court

THE HAGUE – On this final day of the 2019 Global Governance Summer School, students visited two preeminent international tribunals — the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court — for high level briefings. They were also treated to a visit from Dr. Kaitlin Ball (JD ’14), a Georgia Law alumna who recently finished a PhD at Cambridge and is living in Europe.

The group started the day at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an audience with Hendrik Denys, law clerk to the Honorable Joan Donoghue, the American judge on the International Court of Justice. Mr. Denys, an alumnus of our partner school, KU Leuven, spoke with students about the history of the Peace Palace, the structure and procedure of the Court, and several representative decisions of the ICJ’s jurisprudence. He also provided advice for preparing a career in international law.

In the afternoon, the group visited the International Criminal Court (ICC), located on the dunes near The Hague’s North Sea coast. Student first had a meeting with Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, for whom our summer school’s co-director, Georgia Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, serves as Special Adviser on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict. Bensouda described her own path to practicing international criminal law. While acknowledging the barriers to achieving justice, she expressed the urgency of continuing the effort, on behalf of global society as well as the victims of international crimes.

The second audience at the ICC was with the Honorable Kimberly Prost of Canada, who serves as a Judge in the Trial Division. Judge Prost discussed the history of the Court and the many of the challenges facing it. She also emphasized the important concept of complementarity in regards to the ICC’s relationship to national courts.

Students also had the opportunity to view the confirmation of charges against Al Hassan, who is suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in 2012 and 2013 in Timbuktu, Mali. During the portion of the hearing that time permitted the group to observe, students heard from one of the Legal Representatives of the Victims, who emphasized the impact of the alleged crimes.

All in all, it was a great day, a successful trip, and we look forward to returning next year!