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Global Speech Under Pressure: The Promise and Challenges of Free Expression and Digital Rights
February 12, 2021 @ 8:30 am - February 13, 2021 @ 1:00 pm
Each year, the Berkeley Journal of International Law hosts the Riesenfeld Symposium in memory of Professor Stefan A. Riesenfeld, a celebrated scholar and the cornerstone of Berkeley’s international law community. Through this event, we bring together speakers from around the world to speak on matters of global legal, social, and economic importance.
This year our virtual Symposium is titled Global Speech Under Pressure: The Promise and Challenges of Free Expression and Digital Rights. For good and for ill, as recent events around the world have shown, this topic is ever more of critical importance. The two days of this Symposium will be an examination of the ways in which societies need to balance freedom of speech and the protection of safety and human rights in a world that has never been more digitized.
As part of our Symposium, we present the Riesenfeld Award to a legal academic or practitioner that has made an outstanding impact on the development of international law. We are extraordinarily honored to announce that the award recipient and keynote speaker this year will be Nani Jansen Reventlow, founding Director of the Digital Freedom Fund. Nani Jansen Reventlow’s experience litigating freedom of expression cases in international and national tribunals as well as her forward-thinking digital rights leadership and advocacy have placed her at the forefront of international development of speech rights.
Nani Jansen Reventlow will be joined by a slate of outstanding speakers across five different panels who will discuss their research and work on topics such as online hate speech, citizen media, and content regulation. The explosive rise of digital connectivity and new and improved technologies has transformed how, when, and to what extent we can express ourselves. In this Symposium, we will be talking with leading scholars, activists, and practitioners who have studied, used, and transformed digital speech in its legal context in order to promote freedom and human rights on a global scale.
Please join us at 8:30am to 1:00pm Pacific Time on Friday, February 12th and Saturday, February 13th and take part in this vital discussion.
This event is free of charge and open to the public.