June 09, 2011
Professor Larry Catá Backer broadens perspectives on law and international corporations
By Patty Bloom
For those who believe that law is old, unchanging, and stuck in nineteenth century terms, meet Professor 
Larry Catá Backer. Whether in his study of developing international law, presenting material on his blog, or becoming one of the first faculty members to hold professorships at both Penn State School of International Affairs (SIA) and Penn State Law, Professor Larry Catá Backer is constantly on the cutting edge.
He recently addressed the Penn State community about the role of the United Nations in framing a new governance framework for business and human rights that involves states, multinational corporations, and dispute resolution bodies. The presentation focused on how economic globalization has altered international governance systems, which has provided the foundation for the development of a set of proposed Guiding Principles that elaborate the legal and policy basis for a state's duty to protect and a corporation's responsibility to respect human rights, and their joint obligation to provide remedies for human rights violations.
“I am working through the standard academic analysis, theorizing consequences—both theoretically and applied for these issues, but now what I'm looking to see if I can test these ideas,” he said. The next step in his analysis is testing his idea that the United Nations may be able to step in to control and regulate corporations in a way nation states can't.
Professor Backer's classes allow students to take personal interest in current trends and issues in international law. He hopes to eventually provide another such opportunity using his UN research about the current shift in international governance, to eventually offer a class for School of International Affairs students. Backer envisions students acting as consultants. For a class project, students would identify a company's violations of international law and then follow up with dispute mechanisms. “The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development guidelines for national corporations would then be applied,” he said. This process fits with one of Professor Backer's main objectives of taking the theoretical to application.
Professor Backer's interest in international law developed gradually. “It was an unconscious process. Interesting problems led me from domestic issues to international problems. Eventually, more and more of what I was interested in were things that crossed borders. I enjoyed comparing the way things work in the United States to other commonwealth countries,” he said.
However, it was a little advice from one of his professors and experience in private practice that eventually resulted in international law becoming a significant part of his career that it is today. “A professor I had during undergrad (at Brandeis) told me to remember everything is connected, one must draw on one thing in order to see another.” This piece of advice continued to resonate. Later, in private practice in Los Angeles, Professor Backer found himself noticing changes in international business law. “Business now has an increasingly peculiar relationship with the state. It used to be one state for each corporation, however today each corporation has to work with multiple state actors,” he said. It was these developing interests, which later led to a University Teaching Award at the University of Tulsa, and eventually to Penn State.
Today, Professor Backer writes about developing international issues on his blog, Law at the End of the Day. “The blog allows me to do fairly short intense consideration, which later can become more traditional. It allows me to produce and deliver knowledge through a different form of communication,” he said. Each blog post is produced with the knowledge that different things interest different people. However, the blog is not at mercy of its audience. “Its always a danger in academic writing to stop focusing on interesting materials and analysis for direction because you want to satisfy the community for which you write,” he said. The blog has enabled unique collaboration and led to his recent collaboration with the Oxford Sovereign Wealth Fund Project.
Such opportunities allow Professor Backer to be at the forefront of international law, and he will present his predictions of what law may look like in the future at the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law Conference in the Netherlands in June. “My sense is that the state isn't dead, and I don't believe that the market rules. No one unit of government has sufficient power to control it all. There must be governance cooperation. All actors will be working together as blended regimes. States will play significant role, but the way we think about law and public and private sectors is changing,” he said. “If you think about law in nineteenth century terms, it will never be cutting edge, but if you think about it in a current way, then you see where the innovation comes.”
Such innovation and possibility drew him to Penn State Law and the School of International Affairs. Both programs benefit from sharing a building, faculty, and students, to encourage meeting of minds. “This collaboration keeps viewpoints from being professionally narrow,” he said.
Patty Bloom is currently pursuing a master's degree in International Affairs at The Pennsylvania State University. She graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.