Workers’ Rights and Corporate Responsibilities Across Borders: Perspectives on the Role of Law and Social Justice
The Labour Law and Development Research Laboratory and the Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law present Janelle Diller, Paul Martin Sr. Professor of International Affairs and Law, University of Windsor, on leave from the International Labour Organization, with commentators Prof. Richard Janda, and Dr Sabaa Ahmad Khan.
Janelle M. Diller is Paul Martin Sr. Professor of International Affairs and Law at University of Windsor, on leave from her post as Senior Counselor at the International Labour Organization (ILO), a United Nations specialized agency. Her work in international law spans public and private sectors. She served as Legal adviser of the ILO and as legal director of the non-governmental International Human Rights Law Group (Washington, DC) and has provided advice on international human rights and labour law to governments and regional organizations and UN bodies. Working with the ILO, she developed the multi-stakeholder arrangement for compensation for several thousand victims of the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh. She contributed to the international law analysis leading to development of the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and authored the complaint on forced labour in Myanmar that led to a commission of inquiry and ILO sanctions. She has represented human rights victims before UN and regional bodies and tribunals and amici curiae on human rights law issues before the US Supreme Court and Federal courts. Professor Diller’s most recent book, Securing Dignity and Freedom through Human Rights (Brill/Nijhoff, 2012), reviews the legal theory and practical implementation of economic, social, and cultural rights first introduced at international level in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Her research and publications focus on the responsibility of States, international organizations, and economic actors within international and national legal systems for human rights effects across borders.
Professor Richard Janda teaches business associations, administrative law, competition law, economic regulation, and air transport regulation. He was Law Clerk to Justices Le Dain and Cory of the Supreme Court of Canada and is a past Director of the Centre for the Study of Regulated Industries at McGill. His main current research areas are the legal basis of domestic and global corporate social responsibility and the regulatory regimes governing domestic and global public goods. Apart from his academic contributions, he has been involved in work for the WTO, ICAO, OECD, the World Bank, a number of Canadian public agencies as well as work in a number of developing countries.
Dr. Sabaa Ahmad Khan is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of East Finland. On May 9, 2016, Dr. Khan successfully defended her doctoral thesis, titled "Limits of Formalization and Horizons of Urban Citizenship: Insights on Law and Informality through the Lens of Electronic Waste" which was written under the supervision of Professor Adelle Blackett.
