U.S.-Asia Law Institute

Business and Human Rights: A Japan-based NGO’s Perspective

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Eastern Time

Furman Hall 910 and Zoom

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This event is co-sponsored by the APEC Study Center at Columbia University

About the event

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. It puts particular emphasis on the role of Japanese companies in investment and supply chains. Human Rights Now has investigated and campaigned against exploitative working conditions at Uniqlo factories in China, Japanese companies’ business connections with the Myanmar military, and child labor in Myanmar’s fishing industry, among other issues. Human Rights Now founder Kazuko Ito, a Japanese attorney (and former NYU visiting scholar), will discuss the organization’s activities and strategies in conversation with NYU Law Adjunct Professor Bruce Aronson.

About the speaker

Kazuko Ito

Kazuko Ito is founder and vice president of Human Rights Now, president of Human Rights Now New York, and an attorney at law. She serves as chair of the Gender Equality Committee of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations. She is a board member of the Gender Law Society and International Human Rights Law Society in Japan. Ms. Ito has written numerous books and articles on human rights issues, including “Wrongful Convictions and Criminal Justice Reform in Japan” in the University of Cincinnati Law Review and a chapter in the book “The Global Me Too Movement: How Social Media Propelled a Historic Movement and How the Law Responded” (2020). She has an LL.B from Waseda University and is currently a doctoral researcher there. In addition, Ms. Ito was a visiting scholar at NYU School of Law in 2005.  

Bruce Aronson

Bruce Aronson is senior advisor to the Japan Center of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute and an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law. He has been a tenured professor of law at universities in the United States (Creighton University) and Japan (Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo). Before beginning his academic career, Aronson was a corporate partner at Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP law firm in New York. He also served as an independent director at Eisai Co., Ltd., a listed Japanese pharmaceutical company. Professor Aronson twice received Fulbright grants to be a senior research scholar at the University of Tokyo and Waseda University and was a visiting scholar at the Bank of Japan. His main area of research is comparative corporate governance with a focus on Japan and Asia. Publications include a textbook, Corporate Governance in Asia: A Comparative Approach (with J. Kim, Cambridge University Press, 2019).