We are delighted to announce the launch of our first BHRJ blog symposium. Over the coming days, we will publish nine pieces from scholars and practitioners around the world covering the theory and practice of extraterritoriality in relation to business and human rights. In our first post, Sara Seck discusses why the term ‘extraterritoriality’ is problematic and advocates for greater focus on the transnational dimensions of law. We then move on to discuss some major recent cases. Gabrielle Holly describes Kamasaee v. Commonwealth in Melbourne, which involved a challenge to the legality of state and business practices at Manus Island offshore detention centre. Walker Syachalinga then examines the main findings of the recent Vedanta decision of the UK Supreme Court and its implications for victim redress, while Ekaterina Aristova zeroes in on the issue of determining the appropriate forum for litigating extraterritorial human rights violations of multinational companies as was discussed in that decision. Rounding off our look at recent cases, Miriam Saage-Maaß analyses the KiK decision, and Daniella Dos Santos looks at the issues in the Nevsun case in Canada. Thereafter, Elena Blanco addresses the question of extraterritorial jurisdiction through a comparative analysis of Vedanta and KiK. Moving away from justiciability, Changrok Soh and Seunghyun Nam discuss the extraterritorial obligations of Korean companies as regards the acts of their subsidiaries operating outside South Korea, and finally Chiara Macchi applies business and human rights insights on extraterritoriality to the responsibility of international organizations for their civilian personnel abroad.

We plan to host more symposia in the near future and welcome proposals for topics from the business and human rights community. We are also continuing to publish individual pieces and invite submissions from anyone with an interest in business human rights, ethics, corporate social responsibility, and any related field. In particular, we are keen on submissions from emerging voices in BHR. We have recently published pieces by Jernej Letnar Černič on the new Slovenian National Action Plan, Robert McCorquodale on the Vedanta decision, and Surya Deva on gender considerations in modern slavery regulation. The rest of the blog can be accessed here.

To keep up to date with the symposium please follow @BHRJournal and the editors, @MulesaTCK and @David_Birchallz, on Twitter.

Mulesa Lumina and David Birchall, Editors of the BHRJ Blog