In The Shadow of Territorial Conflict Symposium

Save the date for Southwestern’s Journal of International Media & Entertainment Law’s symposium on Saturday, February 4, 2023. The event, “In The Shadow of Territorial Conflict Symposium: Legacies of Soviet-era Media Control and Speech Norms,” is co-sponsored by @ArmenianBarAssociation.This symposium will examine the role of media institutions, government censorship, and social media speech norms in areas scarred by post-Soviet-era disputes over land and ethnicity. We are thrilled to host Dr. Andrei Richter, who will deliver a keynote address in addition to his scholarly paper.

Andrei Richter: Modern Reading of ‘propaganda for war’: International Response to Hostile Speech in post-Soviet Armed Conflicts.

Andrei Richter is Researcher Professor at Comenius University in Bratislava and an Adjunct Professor at Webster University in Vienna. From 2011 to 2022, he served as Director and a Senior Adviser at the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media.  Richter holds university degrees in law, journalism and foreign languages; he has authored more than 250 publications on media law and policy. 

Robert Avetisyan: The Role of Social Media in Creating Narratives: The Case of the Conflict Between Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh

Robert Avetisyan is the Permanent Representative of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic in the United States of America.  Ambassador Avetisyan holds a Bachelor’s degree in philology from the Artsakh State University, and a Master’s degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Rajika L. Shah: Social Media Liability in the Azerbaijan-Artsakh-Armenia Conflict.

Rajika L. Shah is the Clinical Director of the Loyola Genocide Justice Clinic and the Deputy Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Genocide at Loyola Law School (Los Angeles). Prior to joining Loyola, Rajika litigated international human rights and restitution cases on behalf of Armenian and Sudanese genocide victims, indigenous groups, and religious and ethnic minorities at both trial and appellate levels. She also represented Libyan terrorist hijacking victims before the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission. She is the author of numerous publications and was instrumental in developing Oxford Reports on International Law (ORIL).

Andrej Skolkay: Foreign Policy Discourse: Misinformation and Disinformation in the Legacy Media and on Social Media Produced by EU Journalists, Diplomats, Experts and Fact-checking/Debunking Initiatives.

Dr. Andrej Školkay is a research director of the School of Communication and Media, Bratislava, Slovakia (EU). He has published widely on media and politics, especially on political communication, but also on ethics, media regulation, populism, social media, and media law. Dr. Školkay was a member of the Press Council of Slovakia in the years 2005-2008 and is secretary of the Slovak Political Science Association. He obtained his PhD in 2000 from Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Ines Gillich: Media coverage and state propaganda in armed conflicts – An international law perspective at the Armenia-Azerbaijan “Propaganda War.”

Ines Gillich is a Professor of Public International Law. She earned a Ph.D. (Dr. iur.) from the University of Mainz, Germany (2014), an LL.M. from the University of California, Los Angeles (2015) and a post-doc qualification (Dr. iur. habil.) from the University of Cologne, Germany (2021).

András Koltay: Censorship as a tool against state disinformation – the freedom of expression implications of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Dr. András Koltay is the research professor of the University of Public Service (Budapest). He is also professor of law at Pázmány Péter Catholic University Faculty of Law and Political Sciences in Budapest, Hungary. His recent monograph on free speech is New Media and Freedom of Expression (Hart 2019).

Russell L. Weaver: The Ukrainian Conflict, Social Media Disinformation and Propaganda

Russell L. Weaver is Professor of Law and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law.   The author of hundreds of books and articles, Professor Weaver has been a visiting professor at law schools in France, Hungary, Portugal, England, Germany, Japan, Australia and Canada.

Arman Asryan: The compliance of Artsakh’s (Nagorno-Karabakh) Media Regulations with the internationally recognized standards of Media freedom. 

Arman Asryan studied Law (Bachelor’s degree) at Artsakh State University, Stepanakert and later studied Human Right and Civil Liberties (LL.M.) at Southwestern Law School, Los Angeles. Arman has been employed at the Human Rights Ombudsman’s office of the Artsakh Republic. Currently works at Concern Dialog Law firm in Yerevan.

Galena Slavova: The shadow of Russian imperialism: Russian propaganda models since February 2022, and their legal aspect. 

Galena Slavova teaches at Tianjin Foreign Studies University, Changzhou, Peoples Republic of China,  Slavova is a former Bulgarian government official responsible for digitalizing national judicial registers and European Union judiciary funding  projects. She worked as a European Criminal Records Bulgarian Coordinator and became the first female deputy CEO of the Bulgarian State Register Agency.