Book Launch: Civil Remedies and Human Rights in Flux

The Bonavero Institute of Human Rights is delighted to host the launch of the book ‘Civil Remedies and Human Rights in Flux: Key Legal Developments in Selected Jurisdictions’ (Hart Publishing, 2022), edited by Dr Ekaterina Aristova and Dr Uglješa Grušić. This innovative new collection explores the role of civil liability claims in fostering human rights accountability across sixteen jurisdictions in the Global South and Global North. It examines existing mechanisms in domestic law for bringing civil claims in relation to the involvement of states, corporations, and individuals in specific categories of human rights violation: (i) assault or unlawful arrest and detention of persons; (ii) environmental harm; and (iii) harmful or unfair labour conditions. The book is one of the significant outcomes of the project on civil liability for human rights violations led by Professor Catherine O’Regan at the Bonavero Institute and funded by the Oak Foundation.

Editors

Ekaterina Aristova is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Human Rights and Practice at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights. Her main research interests are in the field of business and human rights. Ekaterina completed PhD at the University of Cambridge on the access to justice for victims of business-related human rights violations in the UK. In the last few years, Ekaterina served as a consultant on several research projects that have sought to strengthen corporate accountability for human rights violations. In 2021, Ekaterina was awarded the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship to conduct in 2022-2025 a study on climate change litigation against corporations.

Ugljesa Grusic joined the UCL Faculty of Laws in September 2016, where he convenes the LLB Conflict of Laws module, co-convenes the LLM International Arbitration module. He is also the Course Director of the Notarial Practice Course, in which he convenes the Private International Law module, and also teaches Contract Law and Tort Law at the LLB and International Commercial Litigation at the LLM. Ugljesa has published in leading academic journals, including the Modern Law Review, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Yearbook of European Law and the Journal of Private International Law. He is the author of The European Private International Law of Employment (Cambridge University Press 2015), co-author of the Cheshire, North & Fawcett's Private International Law (15th edn, Oxford University Press 2017) and co-editor of Civil Remedies and Human Rights in Flux (Bloomsbury/Hart Publishing 2022). Ugljesa's expertise includes private international law, especially European and English private international law, and international arbitration. He is regularly consulted by legal practitioners, has participated as advisor in international arbitral (including ICSID) proceedings and has served as expert witness on foreign law in litigation in England and ICSID arbitration.

 

Panel

Lady Arden was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom from October 2018 to January 2022. From 2000 to 2018 she was a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. Lady Arden was also the Head of International Judicial Relations for England and Wales (2005-2018), responsible for liaison with leading courts across the world. She chaired the Judges' Council Working Party on Constitutional Reform (2004-2006).

Lady Arden is also a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and an ad hoc judge of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. She has held a number of other public appointments, including Chair of the Law Commission of England and Wales (1996-1999), and member of the Steering Group of the Company Law Review established by the Department of Trade and Industry (1998-2001). Lady Arden has written and lectured on a wide range of legal subjects. She was called to the Bar in 1971 (QC 1986) and appointed a High Court judge in 1993, the first woman judge to be assigned to the Chancery Division. 

Lise Smit is Senior Research Fellow in Business and Human Rights at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. She conducts research on the law and practice around corporate human rights due diligence and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Prior to joining the Institute, Lise was a practicing advocate at the Cape Town Bar in South Africa. She has worked on business and human rights issues for the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre and the UN Global Compact Office. She was also Law Clerk to the Late Chief Justice of South Africa, Pius Langa, at the South African Constitutional Court. She has authored various publications in the area of business and human rights, including on human rights litigation against companies, and the European Commission study on regulatory options for mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence which formed the basis for the current Draft Directive.

Humberto Cantú Rivera is Professor at the School of Law and Social Sciences of the University of Monterrey (Mexico), and Director of its Human Rights and Business Institute. He holds a LL.D. from Université Panthéon-Assas Paris II. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Business and Human Rights Journal and of the review Droits fondamentaux, the founding Director of the Latin American Academy on Human Rights and Business, a Vice-president of the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum. He has published widely on business and human rights and has extensive experience working with and advising States, international organizations, businesses and civil society on business and human rights in international, regional and domestic standard-setting processes and in the implementation of responsible business conduct standards. He has been an Expert Adviser to the Delegation of Mexico in the business and human rights treaty negotiations, and an Expert witness before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. His latest book in Spanish, Latin American Experiences on Remedy in the Field of Business and Human Rights (Konrad Adenauer Stiftung 2022), addresses Latin American experiences on judicial remedy in business and human rights cases, and covers seven Latin American jurisdictions.

Moderator

Catherine O’Regan is the inaugural Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and a former judge of the South African Constitutional Court (1994 – 2009). In the mid-1980s she practiced as a lawyer in Johannesburg in a variety of fields, but especially labour law and land law, representing many of the emerging trade unions and their members, as well as communities threatened with eviction under apartheid land laws.  In 1990, she joined the Faculty of Law at UCT where she taught a range of courses including race, gender and the law, labour law, civil procedure and evidence. Since her fifteen-year term at the South African Constitutional Court ended in 2009,  she has amongst other things served as an ad hoc judge of the Supreme Court of Namibia (from 2010 - 2016), Chairperson of the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry into allegations of police inefficiency and a breakdown in trust between the police and the community of Khayelitsha (2012 – 2014), and as a member of the boards or advisory bodies of many NGOs working in the fields of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and equality.