Erika George, Professor of Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, presented at the “Human Rights, Legal Systems and Customary Cultures Across the Global South” conference at Indiana University’s (IU) Maurer School of Law on April 9, 2010.
Her paper, titled ‘”Pluralism, Universality: Putting Rights in Context and South/South Cooperation,” considered the trilateral cooperation between South Africa, India, and Brazil on access to medicines and the trade-related aspects of intellectual property and pharmaceutical industry litigation in South Africa. “It explored what the responses (specifically the South-South cooperation’s influence on the market for drug manufacturing and distribution) to the HIV/AIDS pandemic can teach about opportunities for cooperation among countries and the coordination of civil society activism and private actors,” stated George.
Other conference participants included Professors John Cameroff of The University of Chicago Department of Anthropology, Muna Ndulo of Cornell University Law School, Patrick Keenan of University of Illinois College of Law, and Christiana Ochoa of IU’s Maurer School of Law.
The event was cosponsored by the IU’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the African Studies Program who brought together a diverse group of international scholars and practitioners of law, anthropology, and political science to address the major issues surrounding the human rights movement in Latin America and Africa.