Block Center Hosts Scholar and Author Anu Bradford for Annual Brooklyn Lecture on International Business Law 

03/17/2021

The Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law hosted Anu Bradford, the Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organization at Columbia Law School, for the annual Brooklyn Lecture on International Business Law.

Bradford is a leading scholar on the European Union’s regulatory power and a sought-after commentator on the EU and Brexit. Her recent book, The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World (Oxford University Press, 2020), was named one of the best books of 2020 by Foreign Affairs.

In her lecture, Bradford contrasted the approaches taken by the United States, China, and the EU to regulate the tech industry. She outlined the effects of the three nations’ different regulatory systems on the behavior of tech companies, and how the different approaches protected (or undermined) democratic society and individual rights to privacy and personal autonomy.

“Right now, we are witnessing the battle of values in these different visions for governing the digital economy,” said Bradford. “Different stakeholders have rather different views as to which particular model should be advanced. As lawyers, the conversations we have around how we will govern this will have a say in which values prevail.”

Professor Julian Arato, Co-Director of the Block Center, moderated a discussion on the topics that arose in Branford’s lecture. The discussants included Professors Robin Effron, Co-Director of the Block Center, Frank Pasquale, and Yane Svetiev, associate professor at the University of Sydney Law School. The program concluded with Branford taking questions from the audience.

Read more about the Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law here