Supreme Court of Canada cites Professor Dodge's essay

On Feb.  28, the Supreme Court of Canada held in Nevsun Resources Ltd. v. Araya that a Canadian corporation could be sued for violating international human rights norms in Eritrea, and that the act of state doctrine did not bar the claims because the doctrine was not part of Canadian law. In rejecting the defendant’s argument that international human rights norms do not apply to corporations, the court relied on Professor William S. Dodge’s 2012 essay “Corporate Liability under Customary International Law.”

Professor Dodge is Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law and John D. Ayer Chair in Business Law at UC Davis School of Law. He is a leading expert on international law, international transactions, and international dispute resolution, who served as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State from 2011-2012 and as Co-Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law from 2012 to 2018. Professor Dodge is a co-author of the casebook Transnational Business Problems and a co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change, which won the American Society of International Law’s 2012 certificate of merit. He has authored more than 60 other publications in books and law reviews.