News 2019: Peltz-Steele Presents on Works-in-Progress Panel at American Society of Comparative Law, Attends Play the Game World Meeting

Professor Rick Peltz-Steele presented on a works-in-progress panel at the annual meeting of the American Society of Comparative Law at the University of Missouri Law School. Peltz-Steele presented the most recent iteration of his work on access to information law. While away from UMass, Peltz-Steele also attended the biennial international conference of Play the Game, a Danish organization dedicated to transparency and accountability in world sport.

UMass Law Professor Rick Peltz-Steele presented on a works-in-progress panel at the annual meeting of the American Society of Comparative Law at the University of Missouri Law School.  While away from campus, Peltz-Steele also attended Play the Game, a global conference on transparency and accountability in world sport.

Peltz-Steele presented the most recent iteration of his work on access to information law.  The study compares private-sector transparency and accountability measures in South Africa and Europe in the context of development.  The working paper, co-authored with a colleague at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, was accepted as part of a day-long exchange in which comparative law scholars critiqued one another’s work.

The works-in-progress day marked the opening of the annual conference of the American Society of Comparative Law.  Comparative law is the study of similarities, differences, and other interrelationships between legal systems and traditions.  One hundred twenty scholars from twenty countries gathered for the conference at the University of Missouri Law School in Columbia.

Also on Peltz-Steele’s panel were James Maxeiner of the University of Baltimore and Kwanghyuk (David) Yoo of the University of Iowa.  Maxeiner presented a comparative study of lawmaking in Germany and the United States, and Yoo talked about U.S. and European Union court decision on antitrust challenges to patent settlements in the pharmaceutical industry.

The panel was moderated by Missouri’s Mekonnen Ayano, a Harvard doctoral graduate and formerly an Ethiopian judge and World Bank legal counsel.  University of Missouri Dean Lyrissa Lidsky, an accomplished media law scholar, attended and live-tweeted the panel.

While away from campus, Peltz-Steele also attended the biennial meeting of Play the Game, an international conference of the Danish Institute for Sports Studies.  Play the Game aims to raise ethical standards and to promote democracy, transparency, and freedom of expression in world sport.  The meeting in Colorado was the organization’s first outside Europe.

Among the highlights of Play the Game, Peltz-Steele attended a panel on whistleblowers in world sport.  Panelists included Bryan Fogel, director of the Netflix documentary Icarus, on Russian Olympic doping; Yuliya and Vitaly Stepanov, whistleblowers in the Russian doping scandal; Damien Laren of the World Anti-Doping Agency; and Bonita Mersiades, an Australian sport executive who blew the whistle in the Australian bids for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup of men’s soccer.

Peltz-Steele wrote about the whistleblowing panel on his blog, The Savory Tort.