AHRC Corporate and White-Collar Crime Network
Meeting, 1-2 October, Berlin
Our first Network meeting took place on the
1-2 October at Harnack House in Berlin. It focused on exploring ways of
Holding Companies Accountable, either through criminal, or
administrative liability. Other topics discussed were: the issue of
company insurance against wrongdoing, and that of corporate culture as a
factor in determining deviance and shaping human behaviour.
To download the meeting Agenda,
click
here.
To download pictures from the event,
click here.
SYMPOSIUM ON BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
University of Essex, 17th – 18th September 2010
Join us for the Symposium on Business and Human
Rights, organized jointly by the Law Society of England and Wales (LSEW)
and the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex, to be held
17th-18th September 2010 near Colchester, England.
The regulation of business activity by national and international human
rights standards is of increasing importance to practitioners, while at
the same time it constitutes a frontier area of law making. It has
become a focus that practitioners afford to ignore less and less in
their daily work, while also being a centrepiece in policymaking
concerned with regulation of economic activity throughout the world.
To explore these issues the Law Society, in partnership with the Human
Rights Centre at the University of Essex, is holding a symposium that
will bring together people from a wide range of activities and
disciplines to explore the concrete ways in which human rights norms
have an impact on diverse areas of law dealing with business activity.
The themes which will be examined throughout the symposium are relevant
to all commercial lawyers, and other lawyers who act for, or against,
commercial undertakings.
The Symposium will offer analyses and a forum for debate on key issues
in the challenges for business activity and actors in terms of the
evolving law and practice of human rights. With the participation of
lawyers, judges, public servants, policy-makers and other practitioners,
along with representatives from business, IGOs and NGOs, as well as
academics, a wide range of topics will be addressed through key-note
panels and working sessions.
Among the topics to be addressed will be: Access to Information;
Employee and Enterprise Interests and Human Rights; Commercial
Litigation and Human Rights; Investment Decisions; Health and Commercial
Interests; Alternatives to Litigations; Corporate Governance; the
Public/Private Sector Divide; the Financial Crisis; Corporate Complicity
in Human Rights Violations.
The 2-day event will also include an art exhibition, theatre
performance, live music, and a great opportunity for networking in the
pleasant campus setting one hour from central London.
To register for the symposium, and for more
information, click here:
http://international.lawsociety.org.uk/node/7915
Contact the LSEW at:
internationalhumanrights@lawsociety.org.uk<mailto:internationalhumanrights@lawsociety.org.uk>
or contact the conference assistant at the University of Essex, Mr.
Alessandro Biagetti at
abiage@essex.ac.uk<mailto:abiage@essex.ac.uk>
or by telephone at +44 (0)1206 872 558.
Click on the following link to see the full detailed programme:
http://international.lawsociety.org.uk/files/Symposium%20Programme%202010.pdf
For the report of the 2009 Symposium, click here:
http://international.lawsociety.org.uk/files/Symposium%20Report%2011419.pdf
Public panel debate on corporate
accountability
The public panel debate: "Corporate Justice? In search of effective
remedies for victims of corporate abuse” can now be viewed online. This
panel debate was organised by International Federation for Human Rights
(FIDH), OECD Watch and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre on
July 7th 2010 in Amsterdam. This public panel debate can now be viewed
online.
This panel debate was organised on the occasion of the launch of FIDH’s
guide “Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Abuses: A guide for
Victims and NGOs on Recourse Mechanisms” and OECD Watch’s new report “10
Years On: Assessing the contribution of the OECD Guidelines for
Multinational Enterprises to responsible business conduct”.
UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food Professor and former FIDH
Secretary-general Olivier the Schutter opened the floor with a
presentation of the different developments that took place since the 70s
and which led to the current state of affairs in relation to corporate
accountability. The Special Rapporteur highlighted some obstacles
victims face and emphasized the complementary role judicial and
non-judicial mechanisms should play.
Katherine Gallagher, Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional
Rights and Vice-President of FIDH, elaborated on the possibility of
using the United States’ Alien Tort Claims Act (ACTA). Used by several
victims of corporate misconduct to file a court case against US
companies that have violated international law in countries outside the
United States, the application of the ACTA remains difficult for victims
and lawyers who face numerous legal and practical obstacles.
Joris Oldenziel, coordinator of OECD Watch, spoke from his experience on
the effectiveness of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
complaint mechanism that was put in place in 2000. Using as a starting
point the fact that after ten years only 5 of 96 cases were successful,
Mr. Oldenziel discussed improvements to be made to ensure the National
Contact Points can contribute to remedy human rights violations
involving companies.
The last panelist, Menno Kamminga, Professor of Public International Law
at Maastricht University and Trustee of Business and Human Rights
Resource Centre, discussed some of the pros and cons of both judicial
and non-judicial mechanisms, putting forward his view on the
complementarity between these two types of remedial mechanisms. He is of
the opinion that all available mechanisms for remedies need to be used.
Good mechanisms will survive, but pressure from victims and NGOs is an
important requirement to further improve these grievance mechanisms.
The panel debate continued with questions from the audience and
reactions of the panelists on statements presented by the moderator. The
debate was centered around key emerging issues such as out-of-court
settlements, the role of States and the scope of their extra-territorial
obligations as well as the need to reflect upon the application of
standards and mechanisms in emerging countries.
The video of the public debate can be viewed
here.
Essex Business School:
Seminar on Serious Fraud Office
Professor Prem Sikka,
on behalf of the Essex Business School, invites you to a seminar by
Richard Alderman, Director of the Serious Fraud Office, entitled:
The Serious Fraud Office: A Transformed Organisation
Tuesday 11 May at 2.30-4.00pm
Room 4N.6.1
Institute of Employment Rights conference: The Health Agenda at Work
Wednesday 17th
February 2010, 9:30am – 4:00pm
NUT Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9BD
A tiny percentage of major injuries at work
(fewer than 1 in every 15) now result in a Health and Safety Executive
(HSE) investigation. The numbers of inspectors has dwindled in recent
years, while the numbers of prosecutions taken and enforcement notices
issued have continued to fall dramatically. Continuous unsustainably low
levels of government funding for the HSE mean worse is likely to come.
Come to our conference to hear updates from specialists in the field and
add to the debate on how we put health and safety at work back on the
agenda. Speakers: Prof Phil James, Oxford
Brookes University; Prof Andy Watterson, Stirling University;
Rita Donaghy; Prof Dave Walters, Cardiff University; Steve Kay,
Prospect at HSE; Everald Brown, London Hazards Centre; Susan
Murray, Unite the Union; Hope Daley, Unison; Dr David
Whyte, Liverpool University
Events at the Law
Society:
The Annual Grotius Lecture
Transnational Corporations: National Regulation, International
Cooperation and International Judicial Assistance
Tuesday 16 March 2010, 18:00 to
19:30
Location: The Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL
Speaker: Judge Diane P. Wood
"Kingman Brewster's Jurisdictional Rule of Reason, Fifty Years Later"
In 1958, Professor Kingman Brewster published his pathbreaking book on
Antitrust and American Business Abroad. This was a time when conflicts
among nations over authority to prescribe rules of law for business
arrangements were common. The United States stood almost alone in its
commitment to strong antitrust enforcement, and it followed similar
policies with respect to securities regulation and export regulation.
Professor Brewster proposed a "jurisdictional rule of reason" to
ameliorate, or perhaps even eliminate, these kinds of conflicts. His
approach was later adopted in the United States by some courts and by
the American Law Institute, in its Restatement of the Law of Foreign
Relations of the United States (Third), which was published in 1987. The
talk will consider how well the jurisdictionwal rule of reason functioned
in its heyday; whether it was better suited to executive branch decisionmaking or if it was something that judges were capable of
applying; whether such a rule was necessary to prevent transnational
corporations from slipping between the cracks of national regulatory
systems; and finally whether better devices exist today, in 2009, that
allocate jurisdictional competence among nations, facilitate cooperation
where it is possible, and manage conflicts when they arise.
The Annual Grotius Dinner
Tuesday 16 March 2010, 20:00 to
22:30
Location: The Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL
After-dinner speaker: The Rt Hon. Lord Justice Rix, Court of Appeal
The cost for dinner is £65 per person.
Please email
eventsregistration@biicl.org stating any dietary requirements.
Dress code: Lounge suit
For further details please email:
eventsregistration@biicl.org, or go to:
www.biicl.org
The Essex Business and Human Rights
Project invites to the following talk:
March 17th, 2010: Peter
Frankenthal, Amnesty International : "Strategy advice. Economic
relations and Human Rights", time tba
International
Conference:
European Developments in Corporate Criminal Liability
17 - 19 September, 2009
Hosted by
Clifford Chance, London
Videos
from the conference are now available.
Linux and Mac users will need to download VLC <www.videolan.org/vlc/>
(or equivalent) in order to view these videos
-
For the Friday morning session, click here
-
For the Friday afternoon session, click here
-
For the Saturday session,
click here
Thursday, 17th September: 6pm Drinks
reception, Clifford Chance
Friday, 18th September:
9.20 Opening remarks:
Michael Smyth, Partner and Head of Public Policy, Clifford Chance
9.30 Keynote address:
Prof. Celia Wells, Professor of Law, University of Bristol
10.20 Morning Plenary Session 1: Causes
of business crime
Organisational deviance:
Maurice Punch, Visiting Professor of Criminology, King’s College,
London
Corporate culture:
Rick Sarre, Professor of Law & Criminal Justice, University of S.
Australia
Corporate crime and state complicity:
Steve Tombs, Professor of Sociology, Liverpool John Moores University
12.00 Morning Plenary Session 2: Linking
causes to offences
Organisational liability:
Chris Clarkson, Professor of Law,
University of Leicester
Individual liability:
Neil Foster, Senior Lecturer, University of Newcastle (Australia)
The link between organisational &
individual liability:
Laureen Snider, Professor of Law, Queens University, Canada
2.00 Afternoon Plenary Session:
Developments in European Law
Austria:
Ingrid Mitgutsch, Associate Professor of Law, Johannes Kepler
University
France:
Dr. Pascal Beauvais, Lecturer in Law, Université Paris X
Germany:
Dr. Klaus Rogall, Professor of Law, Freie Univesität Berlin
Romania:
Dr. Ana-Maria Pascal, Researcher, University of Essex
Lithuania:
Dr. Deividas Soloveicikas, Attorney and Lecturer in Law, Vilnius
University
3.45 Afternoon Breakout Sessions:
A. Companies and Human Rights
B. Corruption
C. Deaths at
work
D. Directors’
liability
E. Financial
crimes
F. Environmental
crimes
G. Sentencing
Saturday 19th September
9.30 Morning Plenary Session :
Investigation and enforcement
Investigating financial crimes:
Michael Levi, Professor of Social Sciences, Cardiff University
Investigating safety and financial
crimes in Scandinavia:
Dr. Anne Alvesalo-Kuusi, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health
Making prosecution decisions:
Claude LaFont, Prosecutor
11:15 The future of corporate criminal
liability:
Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions
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