Larry Catá Backer
W. Richard and Mary Eshelman Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law and International Affairs
Education:
J.D., Columbia University
M.P.P., Harvard University
B.A., Brandeis University
Professor Backer focuses his research on issues of globalization, especially as it relates to the emergence of ways of understanding constitutional and enterprise law. His most recent work touches on the regulation of multinational corporations, sovereign wealth funds, transnational constitutionalism, and the convergence of public and private law. He is currently researching issues of governments as private actors in global markets, the development of law and social norm systems to regulate business and human rights. Professor Backer splits his teaching between the Penn State Law and the School of International Affairs. He concentrates his teaching in the fields of constitutional, corporate, and transnational law and policy. He has offered a variety of courses in those fields, including constitutional law, corporate law, European Union law, comparative corporate and constitutional law, and international business transactions. Along with colleagues at Penn State Law, he helped develop the innovative course Elements of Law, offered to first year law students for the first time in 2010. He also teaches the SIA core course, “Actors, Institutions, and Legal Frameworks in International Affairs.”
Professor Backer is a member of the American Law Institute and the European Corporate Governance Institute. He has served as a grant peer reviewer for Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law, The Hague, The Netherlands, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and others. He has served on the National Steering Committee for the National People of Color Scholarship Conference (2010). He is the editor of the Globalization Law and Policy Series for Ashgate Publishing. He is a member of the California Bar.
After law school and a clerkship with Judge Leonard I. Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit he was in private practice in Los Angeles, California. He has visited at the Tulane Law School (2007-2008) and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law (1998). Professor Backer has lectured and taught on public and private law aspects of globalization in a number of countries in Latin America, Asia and Europe. He founded and sponsors the Penn State Latina/o Law Students Association. He has served as Secretary of the Penn State University Faculty Senate (2009-2010), serves as Chair Elect of the Senate (2010-2011) and will serve as Chair (2012-2013).
Contact Information:
E-mail: lcb11@psu.edu
Phone: (814) 863-3640
Principal Office: University Park
Papers available via SSRN
Curriculum Vitae
E-Essays ("Law at the end of the Day")
Personal Web page
Penn State Institutional Personal Web page
Selected Publications:
Inter-Systemic Harmonization and Its Challenges for the Legal-State, in FICHL Publication Series No. 11 (2011): The Law of the Future and the Future of the Law 427-437 (Sam Muller, et al., eds., Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, Oslo, forthcoming 2011).
Symposium Issue: A Constitutional Court for China Within the Chinese Communist Party?: Scientific Development and a Reconsideration of the Institutional Role of the CCP, 43(3) Suffolk L. Rev. 593-624 (2010).
Sovereign Wealth Funds as Regulatory Chameleons: The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Funds and Public Global Governance Through Private Global Investment, 41(2) Georgetown J. Int'l L. 425-500 (2010).
Sovereign Investing in Times of Crisis: Global Regulation of Sovereign Wealth Funds, State Owned Enterprises and the Chinese Experience, 19(1) Transnat'l L. & Contemp. Probs. 3-144 (2010).
Rights And Accountability In Development (Raid) V Das Air (21 July 2008) And Global Witness V Afrimex (28 August 2008); Small Steps Toward an Autonomous Transnational Legal System for the Regulation of Multinational Corporations, 10(1) Melbourne J. of Int'l L. 258 (2009).
Theocratic Constitutionalism: Religion as Basis for Constitutional Legitimacy in a Global Age, 16 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 85 (2009).
Internationalizing the American Law School Curriculum (in Light of the Carnegie Foundation’s Report), in The Internalization of Law and Legal Education 49-112 (Jan Klabbers and Mortimer Sellers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Science + Business Media B.V., 2008) (2 Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice (Mortimer Sellers series ed.).
The Private Law of Public Law: Public Authorities as Shareholders, Golden Shares, Sovereign Wealth Funds, and the Public Law Element in Private Choice of Law, 82 Tul. L. Rev.1801 (2008).
From Moral Obligation to International Law: Disclosure Systems, Markets and the Regulation of Multinational Corporations, 39 Geo. J. Int’l L. 591 (2008).
Multinational Corporations as Objects and Sources of Transnational Regulation, 14 ILSA J. Int'l & Comp. L. 499 (2008).
