The last aspect of public law we look at, briefly, is criminal law remedies. However, because criminal law and tort law often overlap we will use the criminal law regime as a transition to looking at the tort law regime. We will then look at corporate governance aspects of human rights, including contractual aspects.
I have tried to point out the possibilities for human rights activism. One essential aspect of HR activism is fundraising. Fundraising occurs through:
tabling with literature and asking for signatures and contributions
concerts and artistic performances
but activists can also raise funds with gofundme.com and similar online capital magnets.<
Another way to raise money is through buying and selling stocks and using one’s own funds. This also raises an important aspect of corporate law: finance and accounting. Those of you who wish to closely inspect the corporation, whether as potential investor or searching for “dodgy accounting” should learn how to read and analyze an income statement
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/022504.asp
and the corporation balance sheet.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/031004.asp
Corporations publish their balance sheets as part of their mandatory annual report. Income statements are usually also provided in the annual report.
I have already mentioned the international criminal court:
https://www.nlg.org/resource/nlg-review/volume-71-no-1
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
http://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-practices-act
The UK Antibribery Act
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1702470
The OECD Antibribery Convention
http://www.oecd.org/corruption/oecdantibriberyconvention.htm
The UN Convention against Corruption
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CAC/
Which basically reproduce the FCPA internationally.
An important point is that criminal laws sometimes create private remedies. That is the case of the US Racketeer influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1020470
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2069636
The Securities and Exchange Acts
As well as the Alien Tort Statute and Torture Victims Protection Act
After exposing the criminal and tort regime we will look to contract and corporate governance (self regulation and soft-law).
We can discuss methodology for your papers after the lecture, we have just 3 lessons for a large amount of material.
Regarding the simulations: Objectives included
a) placing yourself into another role than the one which you are accustomed to – seeing the world through others’ eyes.
b) learning group dynamics of conflict and conflict resolution.
c) understanding how discrete conflicting interests aggregate into social outcomes which may or may not be socially beneficial.
d) why and how states fail.
e) conflicting and competing pressures within and between states.
f) viewing conflict and conflict resolution objectively from a multifaceted perspective rather than subjectively from on’s own individual perspective.
g) exposing you to new and unexpected situations, so you learn to think flexibly
E.g. in the last simulation I specifically gave each player an objective which was necessarily in conflict with other players objectives. Real life is like that sometimes, but only exceptionally. International human rights law seeks to reduce such conflicts and replace them with better interactions.
Good training is hard because it is challenging and provokes growth, preparing one for real life.