In 2003, the U.S. Congress added a civil liability provision to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) permitting victims to seek damages from those who engaged in or benefitted from forced labor and human trafficking. Over the last 20 years, labor advocates have sought to use this statute to hold accountable companies who rely on forced labor inside the United States or occurring overseas, including in Asia. Cases have been filed against U.S. companies using workers trafficked from China or importing shrimp peeled by Cambodian migrants in Thailand, tuna caught by Indonesian fisherman, and equipment made by Chinese prisoners. Three experts will discuss recent cases brought under the TVPRA based on forced labor in Asia, and will explain the debate among federal courts over extending civil liability under the TVPRA to overseas actions. 

The promulgation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 helped focus attention on the need for companies to develop responsible and sustainable approaches to business activities, including their distant supply chains. More than a decade later, severe human rights violations such as forced labor still persist. A distinguished panel of experts will discuss what investors, corporations, NGOs, and government policymakers in the US and Japan are doing now to fulfill their responsibility to protect human rights in supply chains.

The U.S.-Asia Law Institute kicks off its 2024-2025 programs by taking a close look at a problem right here at home: racial profiling of Asian Americans, including at universities. During the Trump administration, the Department of Justice created the China Initiative, a program presented as safeguarding universities and businesses from economic espionage. In practice, it raised widespread concerns of racial profiling of Chinese American and immigrant academics and researchers, many of whom were accused of failing to disclose routine academic activities – but not of espionage or national security breaches. Although the program ended in 2022, there are ongoing efforts to revive it. The Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF), a new civil rights advocacy organization created in response to the China Initiative, reports that Asian American researchers and scholars continue to face bias and heightened scrutiny in their working and living environments. AASF Executive Director Gisela Perez Kusakawa will discuss the current challenges faced by Asian American researchers, scholars, and students from Asia, the chilling effect this has, and the need for legal scholars to help develop innovative solutions to the tensions between national security and American values.

Materials from China’s Xinjiang region including cotton and polysilicon, permeate global supply chains. All products made with such materials are presumptively banned from the United States under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which took effect almost two years ago. Ned Levin, an attorney who has investigated forced labor in China and represents Uyghur asylum seekers in the United States, will explain how the UFLPA came about, how it works, the steps the US government has taken to enforce this massive and unprecedented new mandate, and reactions from companies and trade groups.

Ensuring women’s property rights has long been seen as essential to ensuring their enjoyment of other human rights, from personal safety to economic development. The expert committee that interprets and seeks to enforce the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has over the years developed a unique body of jurisprudence interpreting the convention’s requirement that women enjoy property rights equal to those of men. What is surprising is that this jurisprudence – which encompasses the right to contract, administer property, access credit and government benefits, make use of agricultural land, access adequate housing, and more – has received very little attention from scholars. Law Professor José E. Alvarez, director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at NYU Law School, will explain what he calls CEDAW’s “progressive property jurisprudence.”

In 2019, the world was transfixed by the sight of normally tidy, peaceful Hong Kong wracked by months of massive protests. At stake was Hong Kong’s future, in which many youth had lost hope. Journalists Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin will tell the story of the protests and immediate aftermath mainly through the eyes of four participants, drawing on their new book, Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy.

Since 2017, Japanese women have come forward one after another to publicly share their experiences with sexual harassment. Their bravery has made a difference: In 2020, Japan passed a law requiring large companies to take steps to prevent workplace harassment. Last summer, the penal code was revised to raise the age of consent to 16 and make it somewhat easier to prosecute accused rapists. Kazuko Ito, founder and vice president of Human Rights Now and a lawyer, will talk about the recent efforts to combat sexual harassment in the larger context of the women’s rights struggle in Japan. Questions to explore include the effectiveness of the recent legislative changes and what more needs to happen.

China now boasts the world’s largest distant water fishing fleet, the third largest commercial shipping fleet by deadweight tonnage, advanced technology for exploring the deep sea, and its own global satellite system. It is about to complete its fifth research station in Antarctica. All this makes China a major actor in determining the future of the high seas – waters outside of national jurisdiction.

The women’s movement in the Republic of Korea has been one of the most active and impactful in the region. South Korea joined CEDAW in 1984 and ratified its optional protocol in 2006. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family has led important reforms. But women activists are now facing a severe backlash, and the ministry itself is under attack. Korean feminist activist OH Kyung-jin will discuss the history and development of the women’s movement, the role played by CEDAW in its achievements, and the factors that have produced the current backlash against women’s rights activism.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is one of the most widely embraced international conventions, ratified by 189 states including states in East Asia. But what impact has it had on the actual lives of women in East Asia?

联合国《消除对妇女一切形式歧视公约》（CEDAW）是唯一一部全面保障妇女人权和防止性别歧视的国际条约。负责监督成员国落实、履行公约的机构名为联合国消除对妇女歧视委员会。众所周知，委员会的主要任务是跟进成员国在妇女权利方面取得的进展；而鲜为人知的是，通过发布各种文件，委员会也在积极阐释、发展CEDAW的规则体系。

Over a decade has passed since the United Nations adopted the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Human Rights Now, a Tokyo-based international human rights NGO, works to promote awareness and implementation of the principles in Asia.

In July 2022, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution recognizing the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right. The UNGA calls upon states, international organizations, businesses, and other stakeholders to “scale up efforts” to ensure a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment for all. It took five decades of advocacy to elevate the right to a human right of universal recognition. The distinguished panel of experts will walk us through the journey and highlight possible lessons for gaining recognition of a universal human right to claim innocence.

Over the last decade, a growing number of countries have adopted new laws and other mechanisms to address a gap in national criminal legal systems: the absence of meaningful procedures to raise post-conviction claims of factual innocence. These legal and policy reforms have responded to a global surge of exonerations facilitated by the growth of national innocence organizations that increasingly collaborate across borders. These developments have occurred with little direct help from international law. Although many treaties recognize extensive fair trial and appeal rights, no international human rights instrument—in its text, existing interpretation, or implementation—explicitly and fully recognizes the right to assert a claim of factual innocence. This omission is international law’s innocence gap. This panel will present its analysis of the gap and discuss ways to address it.

Recent developments in the United States and Asia make this a good time to examine the state of women’s rights protection, with a particular focus on the interplay between domestic and international law and norms.

Harassment and violence directed at Asians and Asian-Americans has surged since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jennifer Wu (NYU Law 2004) and Lawrence Wee, partners at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, have stepped up to provide pro bono legal representation for victims of Asian hate crimes, including some of the most vicious recent attacks.

Carole J. Petersen is professor of law at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii at Manoa.