Book Discussion with David Bilchitz: How to Determine Corporate Obligations in respect of Fundamental Rights? 

This lively and important discussion will be held at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and on Zoom. All are welcome to participate and engage with Professor Bilchitz.  

All attendees will also receive a discount code for Professor Bilchitz’s book.  

Author 

One of his areas of expertise has been in the field of Business and Human Rights. In 2017, he was awarded a Von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship and worked on the book which is the subject of this seminar. He also co-edited two books in the field (with Prof Surya Deva) which are titled ‘Human Rights Obligations for Business: Beyond the Corporate Responsibility to Respect?’ (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and ‘Building a Business and Human Rights Treaty: Context and Contours’ (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and has written many journal articles and book chapters. He has also supervised reports in this field commissioned by the International Commission of Jurists and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General’s mandate. He has made submissions for the reform of corporate law to the South African parliament and on corporate governance to the King Commission on Corporate Governance. 

Panel 

Professor Peter Muchlinski  

Peter Muchlinski is Emeritus Professor of International Commercial Law at the School of Law, the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is the author of Multinational Enterprises and the Law (Oxford University Press, 3rd ed, 2021). He specialises in the regulation of multinational enterprises, international investment law and business and human rights. He has worked as a legal consultant for UNCTAD and is a door tenant at Brick Court Chambers, London. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Business and Human Rights Journal. 

Professor Stephen Gardbaum 

Stephen Gardbaum is the Stephen Yeazell Endowed Chair in Law and the Faculty Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law. Previously, he held the rotating MacArthur Foundation Chair in International Justice and Human Rights. He was the 2011-12 Guggenheim Fellow in constitutional studies and a Fellow at New York University’s Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law & Justice in 2012-13. He serves as an elected member of the Council of the International Society of Public Law. His work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Michigan Law Review, the Modern Law Review, the American Journal of Comparative Law, and the International Journal of Constitutional Law, among other journals. His widely reviewed book THE NEW COMMONWEALTH MODEL OF CONSTITUTIONALISM: THEORY AND PRACTICE was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013, the same year a series of his articles on the comparative structure of constitutional rights was collected and reprinted in book form. He holds a B.A. from Oxford, an M.Sc. from the University of London, a Ph.D. in political theory from Columbia and a J.D. from Yale Law School, and teaches constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, European Union law, comparative law, and international human rights. 

Professor Bonita Meyersfield 

Professor Bonita Meyersfeld is a human rights lawyer, academic and advocate. She is an associate professor at Wits Law School and from 2012 to 2017, she was the director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies. She has worked in various international NGOs and was a parliamentary legal advisor in the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. Bonita teaches and publishes in the areas of gender-based violence, business and human rights, international law and animal law. She is the author of the book, Domestic Violence and International Law. Bonita has consulted for, and presented expert statements to, various United Nations fora. 

Bonita obtained her LLB (cum laude) from Wits and her masters and doctorate in law from Yale Law School. She was an editor of the South African Journal on Human Rights and is the founding member and chair of the board of Lawyers against Abuse. Bonita has been appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Mérite (Knight of the National Order of Merit) by the President of France in honour of her work in human rights and gender-based violence. 

Professor Hanna Lerner

Professor Hanna Lerner is Head of the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs at Tel Aviv University and the director of the Hertog Institute of Governance at TAU. Her research focuses mainly on comparative constitution making, religion and democracy, global governance and international labor rights. She is the author of Making Constitutions in Deeply Divided Societies (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and Comparative Constitution Making (Edward Elgar, 2019). Recently, she has also been writing on the painter, film-maker, graphic designer, and activist, Henryk Hechtkopf.

Event sponsors   

 This event is brought to you by the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights in partnership with the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC). SAIFAC is a centre of the University of Johannesburg and a leading research centre in South Africa producing advanced research in its focus areas.