UConn Human Rights Symposium

About the Film

BORDERLAND | The Line Within is a documentary that explores the reality that the United States border is not just a geographic location. The border is everywhere. It lies within every undocumented immigrant family with the threat that at any moment they can be captured, incarcerated, deported; their lives destroyed. The film not only exposes the profitable business of immigration and its human cost, but weaves together the stories of immigrant heroines and heroes resisting and showing a way forward, intent on building a movement in the shadow of the border industrial complex, recognizing the human rights of all.

Following a screening of the film, we’re thrilled to be joined by filmmakers Paco de Onís and Pamela Yates for a post-show discussion moderated by El Instituto’s Anne Gebelein. Join us after for a catered reception in the Dodd Lounge.

Watch the Trailer

About the Filmmakers

Paco de Onís and Pamela Yates – Producer and Director of BORDERLAND. Paco is the Executive Director and Pamela is the co-founder of Skylight, a human rights media organization dedicated to strengthening social justice movements through cinematic storytelling and catalyzing collaborative networks of artists and activists. In many ways BORDERLAND brings the saga of Skylight’s Guatemala trilogy–When the Mountains Tremble (1983), Granito (2011), and 500 Years (2017)–full circle back to the U.S. From the impact of U.S. foreign policy that backed brutal regimes leading to the root causes of migration, to the present situation of mass migration from Central America. 

Our Sponsors

This event is supported by the Human Rights Film & Digital Media Initiative, a collaborative venture between the Department of Digital Media & Design and the Dodd Human Rights Impact Programs at the Gladstein Family Human Rights, as well as UConn’s El Instituto (Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies).

Abstract

Registrants will receive a copy of the paper prior to the event.

Since the advent of corporate personhood, there has been a debate about whether the corporation’s underlying purpose is to maximize shareholder wealth or, otherwise, to make decisions for the betterment of, among others, its employees, customers, and the environment. This paper analyses the role that courts—particularly in common law jurisdictions—can play to fashion a more expansive corporate purpose that extends beyond the traditional notion of shareholder wealth maximization. The first in a series of papers that will consider various topics around ‘litigating corporate purpose’, this paper zeroes in on climate change and how courts are not just a possible avenue to affirm a more socially-conscious corporate purpose, but a necessary one given the continued absence of meaningful legislation or multilateral treaty-based efforts to curtail corporate climate impacts.

Focusing on Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and recent Dutch litigation against Shell, this paper advocates for ‘judicial climate governance’, which is the ability for courts to lay the grooves for future corporate behaviour in a way that will mitigate and even reverse climate impacts. Judicial decisions cannot per se alter corporate purpose from a shareholder maximization model to a broader stakeholder model. But, judicial decisions can require corporations to compensate stakeholders for harm incurred from climate-related impacts. Such decisions can, in turn, cajole corporations to promulgate more climate-friendly policies with the knowledge that inordinate greenhouse gas emissions may result in extensive—and even debilitating—compensatory awards from the courts. 

About the Speaker

Hassan M. Ahmad is an Assistant Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School where he researches and teaches on topics related to corporate governance, business and human rights, transnational law, tort law, international law and climate change litigation. He also served as a full-time Replacement Professor at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law (Common Law Section). He holds an SJD from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, an LLM from the University of California, Berkeley, and a JD from Osgoode Hall. Prior to entering academia, Professor Ahmad worked at the International Criminal Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and as a private practice civil and class actions litigator in Toronto.

Professor Ahmad’s research has been recognized by a number of prestigious scholarly organizations, including the American Society of International Law and the American Society of Comparative Law. He is the co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Litigating Business and Human Rights Violations: Themes, Perspectives, and Prospects (Cambridge, University Press, forthcoming). His work has also appeared in leading Canadian and foreign journals such as the American Journal of International Law, The American Journal of Comparative Law, Berkeley Journal of International Law, UBC Law Review, Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Queen’s Law Journal, and Transnational Legal Theory, among several others. He has also published several book chapters in edited volumes. At the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, Professor Ahmad won teaching awards for in-person and online teaching as well as for his mentorship of JD and graduate students.

Discussant

Comments for this workshop will be facilitated by our discussant, Professor Aaron Dhir (UConn School of Law).

Sponsors

This event is co-sponsored by the Business & Human Rights Initiative (BHRI), a partnership founded by Dodd Human Rights Impact Programs, the UConn School of Business, and the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute.

Structured dialogues increase student engagement and foster inclusive learning environments. By incorporating dialogic modalities into the classroom, students can learn to communicate across difference and navigate challenging conversations, while engaging deeply with course content. In this collaborative workshop, participants will:

• Gain firsthand experience by participating in a structured dialogue
• Learn to build the foundation for a successful dialogue​ in diverse classroom contexts
• Explore a wide range of models​ and share ideas

This event is hosted by the Democracy & Dialogues Initiative, a program of Dodd Human Rights Impact in collaboration with Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

This workshop is primarily forInstructors in the Classroom.