As the start of the 2026 FIFA World Cup inches closer, ’s schedule keeps getting busier.

“If I’m not teaching, I’m on a call dealing with the World Cup,” Ramasastry said.

Ramasastry, a professor of law at the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ”, is an expert in the convergence of business and human rights — a field she helped create. She was also an advisor to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the group that established standards to help governments regulate companies while also providing guidelines for  those companies to navigate global human rights issues.

Her expertise led to work with , which launched a stronger commitment to human rights after the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. included its reliance on migrant workers to build stadiums, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights. As a large global sporting body bigger than most multinational corporations, FIFA accepted that, like those companies, it has corresponding human rights commitments.

In the wake of that tournament, Ramasastry was asked to join FIFA’s human rights subcommittee as its independent human rights advisor. The committee commissioned on Qatar, which found that many migrants were uncompensated for their work, and others died or suffered injuries. 

As a result, the 2026 World Cup marks the first time each host bid had to include a human rights component, including the United Bid submitted by the United States, Canada and Mexico. 

Once that bid was accepted, cities also had to vie to host matches. Ramasastry drafted the human rights action plan for Seattle. Because of her global and local expertise, she’s also chairing the human rights expert advisory group for FIFA 2026, headquartered in Miami. She worked on the 2026 World Cup’s human rights framework, which served as a baseline for cities to create their plans.

UW News caught up with Ramasastry to talk about the World Cup and human rights, Seattle’s action plan and more.

What is a human rights action plan and what potential issues do they address?

Anita Ramasastry: For every city that’s going to host the tournament, in every country, there are going to be human rights impacts. How do you identify harms and risks to unhoused people that are connected to the tournament? How do you ensure that people have the right to assemble and protest? Are workers being fairly paid? 

There are all kinds of issues that arise that are connected to these sporting events. In different countries, there are different issues. Qatar had issues with migrant labor. In Russia, it was LGBTQ+ rights and discrimination. The controversy around Qatar happened after the bid was already awarded. The world tuned into what was happening there and started thinking about human rights. 

The point of having a human rights action plan is that you anticipate the harms that arise from the tournament and you try to mitigate them. It’s been a bumpy ride because the issues we’re now dealing with are not the issues we originally thought we were going to be dealing with. Immigration issues are very different now. The issue of protests and counterprotests weren’t necessarily top of the list before, but they are now very much an issue for cities. 

FIFA and the host cities also have a commitment to what we call “access to remedy.” If someone is harmed, there should be a way for them to be provided with relief and remediation. FIFA is going to have a grievance portal where people will be able to raise an issue and then FIFA is going to screen it. 

This is the largest and most decentralized World Cup ever. FIFA says its role is to protect human rights in the stadium and to protect the human rights of athletes and workers in the stadium. It’s the cities’ job to deal with fan festivals or other events happening outside the FIFA zone. This has been a challenge because the cities don’t get extra money to deal with this. My job is to say we want to protect people — the fans, the workers, the communities — that may get impacted.

What issues are most pressing for Seattle and how did you identify them?

AR: For the Seattle bid, I consulted local stakeholders and they identified what they saw as the top salient risks. The main topics were human trafficking, issues related to unhoused populations, the right to protest, workers’ rights and discrimination against certain communities. 

Now one of the biggest issues — and it’s challenging to address — is the rights of immigrant communities. We at the UW hosted a roundtable on safeguarding immigrant communities. We’re also working on a peaceful assembly toolkit about the rights of protestors — how they can ensure they’re doing things peacefully and lawfully.

Part of the idea is that the practices and protocols that are created for Seattle now can be used in the future. I’d love for Seattle to have good ways of dealing with things. When the MLB All-Star Game came to Seattle in 2023, there were . Those are exactly the issues we don’t want to have happen. If there’s a protest, we don’t want people to be harmed. We want to allow dissent in a proper way. It’s really about the legacy of: Are there mechanisms in place to address issues or, if there is harm, to resolve complaints in a way that helps people?

Can you elaborate on past issues that led to this being the first World Cup to require human rights to be part of the bidding process?

AR: I think it’s a combination of several things. One is that there were the human rights standards that arose out of the United Nations. , a former Harvard professor, helped draft those. And he had such authority that he was then able to go to FIFA and advise on embedding human rights into its operations. FIFA was amenable to changing its governance standards, not only because it was called out because of questions about Qatar, but because it had been implicated. There were and a whole investigation by the Department of Justice. And so with FIFA being ensnared in the bribery and corruption charges, it was open to these other reforms. It was kind of a confluence of events.

At the same time, there was similar pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to do the same thing, so now the IOC also has its own commitment to human rights. It does work with host governments and they have ways in which human rights plans are mobilized. With the expertise we’ve developed at the UW, I’m going to keep moving forward with our students. The Women’s World Cup may be coming to the U.S. in 2031 and the Olympics are in Los Angeles in 2028. Those are other opportunities to ensure safe events.

Speaking of your students, how do they engage with this work?

AR: I just taught a seminar this winter on human rights and the World Cup, so they were able to trace the journey from Qatar all the way to Seattle and beyond. We had people speaking about the World Cup, the LA Olympics and what it means to think about the World Cup going to Saudi Arabia in 2034, which is its own kind of interesting issue. Every week, students were able to meet with insiders — either in-person or virtually. The human rights officer from FIFA Zurich talked to them, as did the leader of the Dignity 2026 Coalition, which is a network of labor and human rights organizations uniting to protect groups who are at risk of adverse effects from the World Cup. Other speakers included former Olympic soccer gold medalist , who is the CEO of the Centre for Sport and Human Rights who worked on the United Bid, and , who graduated from the UW School of Law. She is the COO of the Seattle Reign and chaired the bid committee for Seattle. She now serves on the board of the Seattle 2026 Local Organizing Committee.

Students who want to do applied work helped write the Seattle bid. They were in the room for the roundtables we convened on immigration and peaceful protest, taking notes and writing summaries. My students have met with people who have dedicated their careers to human rights. For many of us, it’s about the people, right? No matter how much money is made, at the end of the day it should be made in a harm-free manner.

For more information, contact Lauren Kirschman at lkirsc@uw.edu.

Hear more from Anita Ramasastry

Anita Ramasastry will moderate “Workers’ Rights in Seattle during the World Cup,” a discussion with King County councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, on May 4 from 5-6:00 p.m.

The discussion is part of an ongoing speaker series from the UW Global Sport Lab where experts discuss the geopolitical, local and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle. These sessions are free and open to all via livestream. Registration is required. Please follow to RSVP.

The ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” on Tuesday announced a transformational gift from the estate of Stan and Alta Barer to the School of Law, expanding the couple’s namesake institute: The Barer Institute for Leadership in Law & Global Development. The gift will support the recruitment of additional international fellows, increase scholarships, endow faculty positions and create more global impact.

The $45 million gift, one of the largest bequests in UW history, will cement the UW School of Law’s reputation and impact as an internationally known center for excellence in global sustainable development. The gift will allow the Barer Institute to expand its work with mid-career attorneys from developing countries, enabling them to come to Washington state and then return to their homes to improve health outcomes, advocate for law and justice, boost education and spur economic development. Building on previous gifts the Barers made to the School of Law, the total endowment for the Institute is more than $50 million. The gift also renames the Institute, formerly known as the Barer Institute for Law & Global Human Services.

“We are honored to extend Stan and Alta’s inspiring legacy of global leadership development with the help of this transformative investment,” said UW President Ana Mari Cauce. “The work of the Barer Institute to cultivate talented mid-career attorneys for the benefit of their home countries and the world is one of our law school’s most innovative and effective programs, and we are delighted to be able to expand its reach.”

Since its founding in 2010, the Barer Institute has contributed to the UW’s commitment to global engagement and impact, and upheld the University’s core value of educating a diverse student body to become responsible global citizens and future leaders.

In 2008, the Barers gave $4 million to establish an institute that would improve outcomes in governance and multi-dimensional development in low and lower-middle income countries and countries in political transition. Each year, the Institute brings three to four fellows to the UW — there have been nearly 50 fellows since inception — where they earn a Master of Laws degree in Sustainable International Development.

“Receiving this gift during the School of Law’s 125th anniversary is special as we celebrate the transformative power of our graduates,” said Tamara Lawson, the Toni Rembe Dean of the School of Law. “Thanks to Stan and Alta’s generosity, the Institute will continue robust engagement and meaningful collaboration. UW Law is furthering the life’s work of Stan Barer and his aim to impact law around the world.”

The new gift will build upon the Barer Institute’s original mission in several ways, including:

• Increasing support for fellowships and scholarships to recruit more students to the Institute and hire post-doctoral research fellows focused on human rights, global business and climate issues. The gift also will help pay for international travel to support the fellows and other Institute participants.
• Funding to recruit Juris Doctor students to the Barer Fellows Program.
• Reinforcing UW School of Law’s impact on sustainable development while expanding its work on the rule of law, the global climate challenge and sustainable business in a changing world.
• Endowing a faculty appointment for a Barer Chair to lead the Institute and participate in cross-disciplinary and global conferences, symposia and networking events. Anita Ramasastry will be the inaugural chair.
• Providing critical program and operating support to develop the Institute into a robust and renowned hub known internationally for promoting global leadership and the rule of law. This will include hiring an executive director to develop and implement programming, as well as an assistant director to help manage programming, and recruit and provide support to the students interested in careers focused on global issues in government, public service and sustainable business. Jennifer Lenga-Long was tapped to serve in the inaugural executive director role.

“Stan’s impact on our state, region and the world cannot be overstated. One of his significant contributions as a leader was his work re-opening trade between the U.S. and China, and his dedication to finding shared values and connection in our global world. Stan’s lifelong work will continue to be felt around the world as this generous gift will empower global leaders and citizens to find innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems,” said former U.S. Ambassador to China and former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, a friend and colleague of Barer’s.

Stanley H. Barer, who went by Stan, was a world-renowned Seattle attorney, UW Regent and UW alumnus (Class of 1963), who died in 2021. He received the 2021 Gates Volunteer Service Award, the University’s highest honor for volunteer service, prior to his passing. His wife, Alta, preceded him in death in 2019.

The son of immigrants, Stan Barer grew up in Walla Walla before attending the UW, where he earned his undergraduate degree and then his Juris Doctor. Barer experienced bigotry, antisemitism and discrimination growing up and in the workplace when law firms wouldn’t hire Jews. He went to Washington, D.C., to work for Washington Sen. Warren G. Magnuson, eventually becoming his chief of staff. Barer learned that he could combat prejudice using the power of the law and he served as the U.S. Senate lawyer for the enactment the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, helping to write the legislation. He also discovered that he needn’t be constrained by national borders, and that he could craft policy that supported global development. Barer was instrumental in re-establishing trade with China in 1979 and securing Seattle as a significant port-of-call.

Barer brought his years of experience to the UW’s highest levels of volunteer leadership, serving as a Regent from 2004 to 2012 and as a member of the UW Foundation Board. He also held volunteer roles with UW Law, UW Medicine and the Burke Museum. Alta Barer also advocated for the transformative power of education and research. At the UW, she served on the Law Committee during a UW fundraising campaign and, together with her husband, hosted numerous events at their home.

“This bequest exemplifies Stan and Alta’s belief in the power of education, the rule of law, and in the critical importance of focusing on what we have in common across cultures instead of what separates us,” said their daughter Leigh K. Barer. “We look forward to seeing the Institute expand and flourish because of their visionary gift.”

Together, Stan and Alta Barer left a decades-long legacy of philanthropy at the UW. They played central roles in the construction of William H. Gates Hall, the School of Law’s home. Across campus, the couple also endowed faculty positions in the College of the Environment, sponsored cancer research at UW Medicine and supported graduate education in the sciences.

“The expanded Barer Institute will serve as a hub for graduate students interested in international careers in service of the global common good, including the advancement of human rights, global justice and the rule of law, and indigenous people’s rights. True to Stan’s vision, it will recognize and build upon multidisciplinary approaches to tackling the world’s greatest challenges by engaging with scholars and practitioners within and beyond the UW,” said Anita Ramasastry, director of the Barer Institute and the Henry M. Jackson Endowed Professor of Law.

For more information about The Barer Institute for Leadership in Law & Global Development, click .

The groundbreaking piece focused on the role of Swiss banks during World War II and the dormant accounts of Holocaust victims and their heirs — unusual territory for a law professor then.

“At that time, this wasn’t a field of research and people thought it was a little bit off the map in terms of my scholarship,” she recalled.

But Ramasastry’s decades-long focus on the intersection of commerce and human rights paid off. In July, she was appointed to serve on the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights. Ramasastry will represent all of Western Europe, North America and Australia-Pacific, one of five UN regions and arguably the most competitive. She was selected out of a field of 22 applicants.

“I am honored and delighted to be appointed,” Ramasastry said. “This is a field I’ve worked in for a long time, but it feels great to be wearing a different institutional hat to try to carry this work forward.”

Ramasastry and the working group’s four other members will meet with government entities, businesses and communities to further the UN’s on Business and Human Rights for how nations and business entities — particularly transnational corporations — can uphold human rights. The group receives reports about alleged human rights violations; engages with other UN bodies and key stakeholders from government, civil society and the private sector; and undertakes two trips annually to examine business and human rights challenges in different countries.

Formed in 2011, the working group reflects evolving views about who has responsibility for respecting human rights, Ramasastry said. That question was brought into sharp focus during the 1999 protests of the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle, when thousands took to the streets to decry the impact of globalization on human rights. The event was emblematic of a new era of thinking about the role of both corporations and governments in addressing human rights around the world.

Those issues have evolved in the ensuring years, Ramasastry said, and new ones constantly arise. Global supply chains are now a big focus for governments and human rights advocates. Ramasastry pointed to Apple’s adverse publicity over its factory operations in China, and a lawsuit filed against Costco last year for selling farmed shrimp from Thailand, where slave labor and human trafficking is common in the fishing industry. The suit was later . New questions have now arisen about what responsibilities businesses have to LGBTQ employees in different parts of the world.

“We think of governments as our watchdogs,” Ramasastry said. “But now we ask, do corporations have an obligation to deal with human rights and respect the same standards, regardless of where they are in the world? The answer is yes.”

Ramasastry succeeds Margaret Jungk, the founder and director of the Human Rights and Business Department at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, who from the working group in March to take another position. , dean of the , said Ramasastry is a “thoughtful innovator” in bridging the fields of business law and human rights.

“She is one of the most sought-after scholars and consultants in the world in this field, one that is critical to the advancement of both justice and human prosperity,” Testy said. “I could not be more pleased to see her being recognized through this distinguished appointment.”

Ramasastry previously served in the Obama administration as a senior adviser in the U.S. Department of Commerce, directing the International Trade Administration’s anti-corruption and trade efforts. In that role, she also coordinated strategies with emerging markets such as Vietnam, Colombia and South Africa, and developed a new business and human rights curriculum for U.S. trade officers in embassies worldwide.

Ramasastry has advised organizations ranging from the World Bank to Amnesty International, co-authored several seminal research studies, written many articles and reports, and won numerous accolades, including the 1998 UW Distinguished Teaching Award and the UW Outstanding Public Service Award for her work with immigrant women and children who are domestic violence victims.  She is also a founding editor in chief of the , a scholarly journal published by Cambridge University Press.

On top of her UN appointment, Ramasastry, who has two children with her husband — also a UW law professor — will continue teaching a full course load at the university. It’s a challenging schedule, she admits, but she said she’s happy to be put to the task.

“I will be busy,” she said. “But this post allows me to move from theory to practice and I am excited by this challenge.”

For more information, contact Ramasastry at arama@uw.edu or 206-616-8441.

In the fall of 2014, Cuban tour guide led a group from the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” on a serendipitous bus tour around his native country.

The group seemed to ask a lot of questions, but Camps — a former attorney and top diplomat turned tour guide — thought little of it; clients were often curious about his life in Havana. So he was caught off-guard by the phone call more than a year later that led to him becoming one of the first Cubans to attend the UW as an international student in more than half a century.

“I was very surprised,” Camps said. “You never think someone will remember you and call you a year or two later.”

The 38-year-old is studying at the  as one of three 2015 fellows — and the first Cuban — in the . Launched in 2012 by retired attorney and UW law alumni , the program pays for attorneys from developing countries to spend an academic year studying issues related to health, education and economic development in their home countries through the university’s Ìę±è°ùŽÇČ”°ùČčłŸ.

Camps is believed to be the first Cuban student enrolled at the UW while living in Cuba since the U.S. embargo against the island nation in 1960. In the 2014-15 academic year, there were 94 Cuban international students studying in the United States, according to the Institute of International Education. Those include Gerandy Brito, a doctoral student in math who completed a master’s degree in Brazil before coming to the UW in 2012.

Camps met Barer on the tour, part of a UW learning trip organized by then-provost and now UW President , a native of Cuba. Barer chatted with Camps as the bus rolled through the streets and discovered he had previously worked as an attorney in Cuba. Barer was struck by his intelligence and resourcefulness.

“He was just a dynamite guy,” said Barer, a former UW regent. “I was very impressed by him.”

Barer is considered a key figure in Seattle’s international trade community. A founder of the Washington State China Relations Council, he played an integral role in opening ocean trade between China and the United States in the 1970s. When President Obama announced in June 2015 that the U.S. would re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba after 54 years, Barer absorbed the news with keen interest — and thought about the bright former attorney he’d met in Cuba.

He tracked down Camps, called him and asked if he might be interested in the fellowship. He also asked Camps to send his resume.

“When I got it, I was stunned,” Barer said. “I thought, he shouldn’t just be a student. He should be a professor.”

A difficult decision

Camps, who grew up in the city of GuantĂĄnamo, worked as an attorney for five years before returning to school to complete a master’s degree in international political relations. In a decade with Cuba’s foreign service, he served as a diplomatic attaché in Syria and deputy chief of missions in Saudi Arabia and Equatorial Guinea, among other positions. His research has focused on areas including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the GuantĂĄnamo Naval Base. He is fluent in English, French and Arabic.

Despite his accomplishments, Camps left foreign service for a more lucrative career as a tour guide. For five years, he led tours for a New York-based company with some high-profile clients (Beyoncé was on one of Camps’ tours). The hours were long, but Camps was making enough money to support his family and a decent wage by Cuban standards.

So when the call came from Barer, Camps was intrigued but hesitant. His father died when he was 6, and Camps was reluctant to leave behind his wife and then 1-year-old son, Alberto.

“It was a very hard decision,” he said. “I grew up without a father. When that happens to you, you don’t want to that to happen to your son.”

And when the call came, Camps was a bit distracted.

“There was a meter and 20 inches of water in my house because it was raining — the rain in Cuba is very heavy — and I was in the middle of an operation to evacuate my family,” Camps said, laughing.

Camps soon decided to accept the offer, but there were hurdles ahead. The U.S. State Department initially denied his visa application, prompting Barer to write numerous letters to the government on his behalf. Other Cuban students have secured visas more easily, Barer said, but Camps’ background made him unique.

“I think the problem was that he had been a top diplomat for Cuba in the Middle East. And at that time, Cuba’s diplomatic missions in there were pursuing a different foreign policy than ours,” he said.

Camps’ visa was finally granted in November 2015, three months after the other two fellows began their studies. He immersed himself in studies on U.S. corporate and trade law, areas he believes will offer significant opportunities as renewed relations with Cuba strengthen and evolve.

“Neither Americans know about Cuban law, nor Cubans know about U.S. law,” said Camps, whose studies at the UW will wrap up in December. “There’s a gap. The majority of Cuban lawyers, for example, don’t have a clue how complicated shareholder agreements can be, because most of the big companies that have shares belong to the state.”

The fellowship, Camps said, is “tremendously important” and unique.

“It provides private resources for the public interest of other countries,” he said. “I don’t know of anyone else doing this in the way that the Barer Institute and the UW School of Law are doing.”

, director of the UW Sustainable International Development LL.M. program, said Camps and the other fellows — which include a judge from Uganda and an anti-corruption activist and professor in Nepal — come to UW at critical junctures in their countries’ histories. Previous fellows have included judges, human rights activists and attorneys from Indonesia, Mongolia and Myanmar, among other nations.

“These scholars are change-makers in countries in great transition,” she said. “We are a trade-dependent state, so if we think about Washington’s future, it’s people like David who are going to go home and really help us build important bridges between our economies.”

The law school and the Barer Institute, Ramasastry said, aim to use law to create a framework for greater human prosperity and leaders for the global common good. The Sustainable International Development Program and the Barer fellowship, she said, are clear examples of that goal.

‘The same feeling’

Camps arrived in the United States for the first time in December, landing in Seattle to fill out paperwork before taking a bone-chilling trip to Chicago to visit his brother-in-law. He was expecting cold in Seattle too — not in terms of weather, but people — but said he’s been surprised at how friendly Seattleites are.

As someone who’s spent most of his life on an island, Camps likes the city’s soul-soothing proximity to water. And though Seattle architecture may arguably pale in comparison to Havana’s crumbling colonial splendor, Camps also appreciates the “beautiful” UW campus and the convenience of his temporary digs in a nearby apartment. He misses Cuban food, especially tropical fruits, but has been consoling himself by dining at some of the neighborhood’s ethnic restaurants.

Mostly, Camps said, he’s struck by the cultural similarities between Cuba and the U.S., nations just 90 miles apart but ideologically separated by a generations-old cold war. Camps went to the Mariners season opening game in April and sat in the stands marveling at how far away, and how close, his homeland seemed.

“It’s the same feeling, the same reaction, in a ballpark in Havana and here in the U.S.,” he said. “It’s amazing how different we are in some areas, but how close we are in our point of view.”

Note: This story was updated on 6.29.2016 to clarify that at least one other Cuban international student has enrolled at the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” since the U.S. embargo against Cuba was imposed in 1960.