Symposium: Human Rights Reactions to Economic Laws

Overview

We are pleased to announce the symposium Human Rights Reactions to Economic Laws, which will be held on 19 June 2024 at Tilburg University as part of the academic agenda of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research.

The interplay between human rights and economic laws is not new and has long captured the attention of both academics and practitioners. The ongoing debates surrounding the eroding boundaries between dichotomies like the public and private legal spheres, national and international law, the corporation and the state, etc. underscore a dynamic terrain that has started to be scrutinised within scholarship. This evolution is notably manifested in the rapid expansion of the field of business and human rights, extending beyond legal academia to encompass the realms of economics, social and political sciences.

Markedly, the challenge to the protection of human rights in a globalised world with significant corporate power, whether constructed by or through law or otherwise, has been in discussion for over half a century. How far have we come? The presentations offer reflections on the pushback against economic laws. Other examples are that of the backlash against investor-state dispute settlement in international investment law, or the fast-paced development of tort law to cover supply chain harms and third-party effects of contracting. These reactions are visible on many fronts at once: in public and private international law, in corporate law, in private law, in legal theory and much more. How are human rights shaping economic laws and vice versa?

Many of the speakers will contribute with insights that not only apply the discourse based on international/regional human rights law but also engage with the broader interdisciplinary dialogue shaping both our understanding of human rights and economic laws, both broadly conceived. This encompasses but is not limited to, the domains of international investment and trade law, corporate, private and commercial law, financial and banking law, as well as critical and non-hegemonic approaches like Third World Approaches, decolonial approaches, (Third World) Feminism, Intersectionality or Law and Political Economy approaches.

Symposium Programme

13.30-14.00  Reception and coffee

14.00-14.10  Introductory remarks

14.10- 15.10  Panel I: (Re)visualising Structures

Carlos Portugal Gouvêa, Rethinking the Business and Human Rights Framework in View of the Perpetuation of Systemic Failures

Santiago Zuleta Rios, Sewing reparations in a transnational frontier: a legal history of capitalism and human rights in la Guajira (1976 – 2026)

Seniha Irem Akin, The Public / Private Challenge of Corporate Sustainability: Interests, Actors and Rules

Elena Corcione, Enhancing the State duty to protect: recognizing and tackling human rights abuses in contract-based global value chains

15.10-15.20  Coffee break

15.20-16.20  Panel II: (Re)visualising Finance

Daniel Litwin & Elsa Savourey, Human Rights and EU Sustainable Finance: The Story of a Non-Reaction

Jennifer de Lange, The Hare & the Tortoise: Embedding Human Rights in the financial system

Ege Okakın Erbaş, Legal supervision on EU financial markets: Can rule of law and good administration angles save the human rights?

Gabriel Araujo, Empowering Women: A Catalyst for Human Rights-Based Economic Development in Latin America

16.20-16.30  Coffee break

16.30-17.30  Panel III: (Re)visualising Property

Marlies Hesselman, When the Right to Affordable, Reliable and Sustainable Energy Meets International Economic Law: A Tale of Two ICSID and WTO Cases

Dalia Palombo, Protecting Corporate Property: Is Climate Change a Game Changer?

Elena Izyumenko, The Non-Obvious Relationship: The influence of the European Court of Human Rights on Intellectual Property Law

Daniel Lucas Dejavite de Biagio, Economic laws as a limiting factor for participatory experiences in the Global South: the experience of the homeless population in São Paulo (Brazil)

17.30-18.15  Concluding Keynote by Jean Ho, Our Misguided International Economic Law

Contact information

For questions, please contact Debadatta Bose and Gustavo Becker at d.bose@tilburguniversity.edu and g.becker@uva.nl. 

We look forward to your participation in making the symposium a successful and enriching academic event.

Organizers

Tilburg University & the Business and Human Rights Working Group of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research

Registration

Please confirm your participation as an audience member by registering here.