Victor Cabezas Alban

Victor Cabezas Alban is an SJD candidate from Ecuador and Colombia. Before joining the program, Victor worked at the leading law firm in Ecuador, handling labor and dispute resolution matters. Concurrently, Victor has been associated with Universidad San Francisco de Quito, as a professor of law and business. Victor holds three master’s degrees, one in labor law from Universidad Externado de Colombia (2020), another in legal research from Universidad de Los Andes (2021), and in 2023 he graduated with distinction from the LLM program at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Victor is currently a doctoral candidate in law and the director of two business and human rights projects with the Wharton School of Business. The first focuses on developing the first ranking of companies with the best human rights policies in Latin America, under the direction of Prof. William S. Laufer. The second aims to compile which practices have proven effective in relationships between indigenous communities and companies in the extractive industry under the direction of Prof. Vit Henisz.

His dissertation focuses on studying how companies understand human rights and how the discourse of international treaties can be implemented in tangible corporate projects. Through three essays, Victor will study the mechanisms for integrating human rights into the social axis of the ESG framework and climate finance projects. Additionally, Victor will explore the costs of human rights litigation by companies, attempting to elucidate under what conditions litigation against companies for human rights violations could change their corporate behavior. Finally, Victor’s dissertation will be complemented by research on the cost of human rights, trying to develop a theoretical framework for companies to adequately quantify them and for discussions about rights to have a place in a boardroom of financial executives.

Victor’s research is directed by Professor Beth A. Simmons and will be evaluated by a joint committee of both Penn Carey Law and the Wharton School.

Representative Publications

Risky Divorce: Why Climate Finance Cannot Afford to Ignore Human Rights., lessons from Colombia (forthcoming 2024, Cambridge Business and Human Rights Journal)
Cabezas Albán, V. From Scapegoats to Victims: The Case of the Isaias Brothers and some Novelties on Transnational Litigation. In Revista Derecho del Estado, Uni-versidad Externado de Colombia. 57, September – December, 2023, 203-224.doi: https://doi.org/10.18601/01229893.n57.08
The Miskito divers case: A living laboratory to audit the adaptability of the Inter-American Human Rights System [spanish edition]. Revista de Derecho, Pontifica Universidad Católica del Perú (2020)
Covid-19 and Labor Law: Symptoms of a model in crisis [spanish edition]. Revista Iuris Dictio, Universidad San Francisco de Quito (2020)
Human Rights and BIT: Intersections and collisions crisis [spanish edition]. Revista Iuris Dictio, Universidad San Francisco de Quito (2017)