The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) is pleased to name Ayako Hatano and Nathan Yaffe as the winners of this year’s Global Justice Emerging Scholar Essay Prize. Hatano and Yaffe receive this award for outstanding research and scholarship on papers submitted to the Center’s Fourteenth Annual International Law and Human Rights Emerging Scholarship Conference, held in April 2017.

Hatano’s paper, “Can Strategic Human Rights Litigation Complement Social Movements? A Case Study of the Anti-Hate Speech Movement in Japan,” draws on original research, including interviews with representatives of government and non-governmental institutions in Japan, to examine the contributions of lawyers, civil society organizations, local communities and international human rights bodies to social and legal change surrounding the regulation of hate speech in Japan.  Her paper will make an important contribution to the literature on human rights advocacy in Japan and the complex and sensitive issue of hate speech. Hatano is a CHRGJ Human Rights Student Scholar and an International Law and Human Rights Fellow.

Yaffe’s paper, “Indigenous Consent: A Self-Determination Perspective,” provides an in-depth look at the normative roots of Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) in indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and critiques the “thin” notion of consent that currently predominates corporate efforts to comply with FPIC. The paper goes further, offering a tentative reform proposal:  the creation of a third-party review mechanism that would evaluate the substantive and procedural fairness of agreements between indigenous peoples and the entities seeking use of their lands and resources, in view of the indigenous people’s right to self-determination.

CHRGJ commends both Hatano and Yaffe for their rigorous scholarship.

The award, inaugurated by CHRGJ in 2013, is based on quality of writing; clarity of argument; originality or creativity of topic; depth of research conducted; and engagement with human rights scholarship and/or jurisprudence.

CHRGJ congratulates all of the JD and LLM student scholars who participated in this year’s conference. Their excellent papers and presentations generated a dynamic and constructive discussion and drew commendation from faculty members and external commentators alike.  The Center looks forward to the 2018 Emerging Human Rights Scholarship Conference and encourages all NYU law students to submit their work for consideration.

About the Conference: The International Law and Human Rights Emerging Scholarship Conference is co-hosted by CHRGJ and the Institute for International Law and Justice (IILJ). Now in its fourteenth year, the conference provides a unique opportunity for NYU School of Law JD, LLM, and JSD students to receive substantive feedback on their human rights scholarship from NYU law faculty, visiting scholars, and external experts in the field.