Human Rights in Practice: The Right to Housing and Corporate Responsibility

January 27, 2020 • 12:30 PM • Law School 4047

Join us for a discussion on human rights and business with Dr. Surya Deva, professor at City University of Hong Kong and a member, U.N. Working Group on Business and Human Rights. In this talk, Prof. Deva will discuss the duty of states as well as the responsibility of corporations in relation to the right to housing in the context of privatization and financialization of housing. He will draw on the relevant international human rights standards (both hard and soft norms) as well as communications on this issue sent by the United Nations Special Procedures to, among others, the Government of the United States of America and Blackstone Group in March 2019. This event is part of the Human Rights in Practice series, organized by Duke Law's International Human Rights Clinic and the Center for International and Comparative Law. Co-sponsored by Civil Justice Clinic, Community Enterprise Clinic, Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke Human Rights Center at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Human Rights Law Society, and International Law Society. Lunch will be provided. For more information, please contact Balfour Smith at bsmith@law.duke.edu.

Surya Deva

Surya Deva is an Associate Professor at the School of Law of the City University of Hong Kong, and a member of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights. Prof. Deva’s primary research interests lie in business and human rights, India-China constitutional law, and sustainable development. He has published extensively in these areas, and has advised UN bodies, governments, multinational corporations, and civil society organisations on matters related to business and human rights.  He is one of the founding Editors-in-Chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal, and sits on the Editorial/Advisory Board of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, the Vienna Journal on International Constitutional Law and the Australian Journal of Human Rights. Prof. Deva is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Constitutional Law.