LOUISVILLE LAW REVIEW SYMPOSIUM
“A RIGHT DELAYED IS A RIGHT DENIED”
CURRENT THREATS TO INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
AGENDA AGENDA
LIGHT BREAKFAST
8:15 AM - 9:00 AM
WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS
9:00 AM - 9:15 AM
PANEL 1: “FOUNDATIONS AND THEORIES OF HUMAN RIGHTS LAW”
Professor Luke M. Milligan, Professor Craig S. Lerner, Mr. Mujib Jimoh
9:15 AM - 10:15 AM
BREAK
10:15 AM - 10:30 AM
PANEL 2: “CURRENT THREATS TO INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS”
Dr. Julia Duffy, Mr. Alireza Nourani-Dargiri, Dr. Julie Bunck
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
LUNCH
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
PANEL 3: “HUMAN RIGHTS LAW AND THE UNITED STATES”
Professor Tiffany D. Atkins, Professor Shruti Rana, Professor Enid Trucios-Haynes, Morton Holbrook
12:30 PM - 1:45 PM
BREAK
1:45 PM - 1:50 PM
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Professor Michael J. Kelly
1:50 PM - 2:20 PM
CLOSING REMARKS
2:20 PM - 2:30 PM
“FOUNDATIONS AND THEORIES OF HUMAN RIGHTS LAW”
LUKE M. MILLIGAN is a Professor of Law and Director of the Ordered Liberty Program at the University of Louisville. A founding proponent of the idea of a constitutional “right to be secure,” Professor Milligan has authored dozens of articles and book chapters on political theory and constitutional law, helping inspire the establishment of a litigation center at one of the nation’s premier public interest firms, Institute for Justice, based in Arlington, Virginia. He sits on the board of advisors of the Cato Supreme Court Review in Washington, D.C., the board of editors of the Public Governance, Administration, and Finances Law Review in Budapest, and the scientific committee for the CERIDAP editorial series in Milan. He has been a visiting scholar on law faculties in Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, and South Africa. Milligan practiced law with the Washington, D.C., firm Williams & Connolly, focusing on regulatory and white-collar criminal matters. He represented U.S. Senator Rand Paul as amicus in landmark separation-of-powers litigation, stripping the Governor of Kentucky of inherent emergency authority under the constitution and, in turn, ending all statewide COVID curfews, capacity limits, and mask mandates. Milligan is a founding director of the Ordered Liberty Program (OLP). OLP governs a range of university initiatives, including the Ordered Liberty School in Central Europe, based in Hungary at the Ludovika University of Public Service in Budapest. OLP oversees a core academic curriculum, a law fellowship program, a speaker series, and international academic conferences. Milligan co-founded OLP with Professor Justin Walker, now Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Milligan formerly served as law clerk to Judge Edith Brown Clement of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge Martin L.C. Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He was articles editor of the law review at Emory and, years later, a visiting law professor, teaching the English common law of habeas corpus. At UofL, Milligan teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Jurisprudence, and Natural Law & Natural Rights. He’s been named Professor of the Year by alumni and Hooding Professor by four graduating law school classes.
PANEL 1
“FOUNDATIONS AND THEORIES OF HUMAN RIGHTS LAW”
CRAIG S. LERNER is a Professor at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He formerly served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Professor Lerner teaches and writes in the area of criminal law, criminal procedure, and legal history. His research has included such topics as the Second, Fourth and Eighth Amendments, sentencing policy, and white-collar crime. His articles have appeared in the University of Chicago Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Texas Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review, and many other journals. Professor Lerner received an A.B. and J.D. from Harvard and an M.A. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He clerked for the Honorable James L. Buckley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and worked as an associate at Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal and Wiley, Rein & Fielding. He also served as an Associate Independent Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel (Whitewater Investigation).
MR. MUJIB JIMOH obtained his first degree in law in Nigeria with First Class Honors. He thereafter attended the Nigerian Law School, and after graduating he was called to the Nigerian Bar as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. He previously practiced law at Banwo & Ighodalo, one of the leading Law Firms in Nigeria. Mr. Jimoh then obtained his Master of Laws from Duke Law School as a Judy Horowitz Scholar. While at Duke, he also served as a Salzberg Cutler Fellow in International Law, and as a Research Associate. At present, he is an attorney at the Legal Aid of North Carolina. His articles have appeared in several International Law journals, including the California Western International Law Journal, the African Human Rights Law Journal, the Indonesian Journal of International and Comparative Law, the Computer Law and Security Review, and The International Journal of Technology Law & Practice, among others. His current research focuses on cultural relativism and contemporary human rights, particularly the factors limiting judicial cross-fertilization amongst the regional human rights courts and commissions.
PANEL 1
“CURRENT THREATS TO INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS”
DR. JULIA DUFFY is a postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Australian Centre for Health Law Research in Brisbane, Australia. She researches, publishes, and provides advice to government and non-government organizations on disability law and policy and human rights. She has over twenty years’ experience as a government lawyer and policy advisor, working in law reform and senior executive positions for a number of different departments in the Queensland Government. Most notably, Dr. Duffy served as Queensland’s Deputy Public Guardian, where she was the decision-maker of last resort for adults with impaired capacity. She has also served as a legal member on the state’s Mental Health Review Tribunal and as a member of disciplinary boards for allied health practitioners. Her book, “Mental Capacity Law, Dignity and the Power of International Human Rights,” was published by Cambridge University Press in August 2023. Dr. Duffy received a Master of Arts from the City University of New York, a Bachelor of Laws from the Queensland University of Technology (First Class), a Master of Laws from the University of Cambridge (UK), and a Doctorate degree in Law from the Queensland University of Technology.
MR. ALIREZA NOURANI-DARGIRI is a judicial clerk at the Colorado Supreme Court. Prior to his clerkship, he was a fellow at Case Western Reserve University School of Law where he taught in their legal writing courses as well as a section of the school’s Race, Law & Society course. Mr. Alireza Nourani-Dargiri’s research focuses primarily on the intersection of race and law, ranging from topics including cash bail, life without parole sentences for children, issues with diversity in the legal profession, and protesting.
PANEL 2
“CURRENT THREATS TO INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS”
DR. JULIE BUNCK is a professor of political science at the University of Louisville. Her publications include “Fidel Castro and the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba” (1994), “Bribes, Bullets, and Intimidation: Drug Trafficking and the Law in Central America” (2012) and “Law, Power, and the Sovereign State: The Evolution and Application of the Concept of Sovereignty” (1995). She has taught at the University of Virginia, Georgetown University, Colgate University, the University of Pennsylvania, here at the University of Louisville, and at an array of universities in other countries, including Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, and Australia. Bunck earned her Ph.D. at the University of Virginia and, in 1995, joined the first group of American academics to teach at the university level in Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. She has authored or co-authored four books and dozens of chapters and articles, served as a Fulbright Scholar in seven countries, and has joined the faculty on two around-the-world cruises and on one Circle Atlantic cruise with Colorado State University’s Semester at Sea. Her areas of expertise include international law, international relations, Cuba and Central America, Southeast Asia, and economic development models. She is currently completing a book on South Africa’s affirmative-action development model.
PANEL 2
“HUMAN RIGHTS LAW AND THE UNITED STATES”
PROFESSOR TIFFANY D. ATKINS is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law. She is a race, equity, and human rights scholar; her work focuses on the law’s capacity—both domestic and international—to advance and protect the human rights of Black people, people of color, and members of other marginalized groups in the United States. Her research has been published in academic journals such as the Michigan Journal of Race and Law and the Kentucky Law Journal. She has also written essays for media outlets including U.S.A. Today. Formerly a faculty member at Elon University School of Law, Professor Atkins joined the J. David Rosenberg College of Law faculty in 2023 and teaches Race and the Law, Civil Procedure, and Family Law. She is a proud first-generation college and law student, and former litigator with Legal Aid of North Carolina, where she represented clients in family law, public housing, unemployment, and educational justice cases.
PROFESSOR SHRUTI RANA is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Inclusive Excellence and Strategic Initiatives for the University of Missouri’s Division of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity and a Professor of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law. Professor Rana earned a master’s in science from the London School of Economics and her law degree from Columbia Law School. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Missouri, her experiences include: clerking for Judge James R. Browning on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; practicing international, corporate, and regulatory law for Williams & Connelly LLP and Quinn Emanuel LLP; Of Counsel at Brooks Pierce LLP; and serving as a Social Affairs Officer at the United Nations. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Missouri, Professor Rana was at Indiana University-Bloomington, where served as Senior Assistant Dean for Curricular and Undergraduate Affairs and Diversity Officer at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, and she also served as a Professor and was the Director of the International Law & Institutions Program.
PANEL 3
“HUMAN RIGHTS LAW AND THE UNITED STATES”
PROFESSOR ENID TRUCIOS-HAYNES is the Bernard Flexner Professor of Law at the Brandeis School of Law. She is a nationally recognized scholar in immigration law and she has been in the field for more than 30 years. Professor Trucios-Haynes teaches constitutional law, immigration law, international law and race and the law. Her research and scholarship focuses on immigration law, constitutional law and race and the law with an emphasis on issues affecting Latinos/as.
MORTON HOLBROOK is on the adjunct faculty at the Brandeis College of Law at the University of Louisville. He is a retired United States diplomat (Foreign Service Officer), and served overseas at U.S. diplomatic posts in China (where he was U.S. Consul General in Shenyang), Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, and France. In the U.S., he worked in the State Department Legal Advisor’s Office, the Office of Chinese Affairs, the Office of the Counselor, and for the Under Secretary for Security Assistance. He was the State Department Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in 1999-2000. After retirement as a diplomat in 2007, he taught for five years at United International College in Zhuhai, China, and then was director of the Hong Kong America Center, on the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has degrees from Vanderbilt University (B.A., Economics), the U. of Michigan (M.A., Chinese language and history), the U. of Chicago (J.D.) and Columbia University (LL.M.)
PANEL 3
KEYNOTE ADRESS
PROFESSOR MICHAEL J. KELLY holds the Senator Allen A. Sekt Endowed Chair in Law at Creighton University. He is the author of seven books and over 50 articles including Prosecuting Corporations for Genocide (Oxford University Press 2016) and The Cuba-U.S. Bilateral Relationship: New Pathways & Policy Choices (Oxford University Press 2019). His research is among the top 3% downloaded from the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). His current project, which is the subject of today’s keynote, maps the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to cyberspace and was published last year at the University of Pennsylvania Law School’s Journal of Law & Social Change. He plans to follow this up with a new piece that creates a risk assessment matrix measuring threats various AI models pose to digital human rights. With his co-author, David Satola from the World Bank, Professor Kelly co-Chairs the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Internet Governance and they are also co-authors of The Right to Be Forgotten, published in the University of Illinois Law Review in 2017. Professor Kelly is a member of the Board of Directors of l’Association International de Droit Pénal, an association of international criminal law jurists based in Paris, and also serves on the board of the International Scientific & Professional Council of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme based in Milan. Professor Kelly also directs the annual international criminal law/Holocaust summer abroad program “From Nuremberg to The Hague” in Nuremberg, Germany in conjunction with Friedrich-AlexanderUniversität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany, Jagiellonian University in Poland, and Memorium Nürnberger Prozesse – Museen der Stadt Nürnberg (Courtroom 600). This program is co-sponsored by the Institute for Holocaust Education, and Professor Kelly is happy to talk with any students who may want to enroll for this summer.