Applicable Law in Business & Human Rights Litigation

Prof. Vázquez will present a paper that addresses the question of applicable law in transnational Business and Human Rights disputes, by which he means litigation against businesses based in developed countries seeking redress for injuries caused by such businesses in developing countries. The paper first considers the “vertical” choice of law question, discussing the role of treaties and customary international law in such adjudication. It then discusses the “horizontal” choice-of-law question, meaning the choice between the law of the place where the impugned conduct occurred (or caused injury) and the law of the state of domicile of the defendant. This part of the paper considers, in particular, the emerging trend of allowing the injured parties to select the applicable law as between the two options mentioned.

Carlos M. Vázquez is the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law at Georgetown University, where he teaches Public International Law, Conflict of Laws (Private International Law), Foreign Relations Law, and Federal Courts and the Federal System, among other courses. His scholarship has been published in the American Journal of International Law, the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, and numerous other legal journals. He has been a Visiting Professor at Yale Law School and Harvard Law School. He has served as a Member of the U.N. Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Inter-American Juridical Committee.

Registration

Registration by email (scilj@juridicum.su.se) 7 September at the latest. Please indicate if you want to have the draft of the paper beforehand.