In 2024, in the context of Palestine student protests, the Rectorate of the University of Lausanne (UNIL) set up a working group ‘to reflect on a framework allowing the evaluation of external collaborations from the point of view of ethics, scientific integrity, international law and academic freedom, and to assist and support members of the UNIL community in their collaborations’. The author of this post was a member of the UNIL working group. She writes this blog post in her personal capacity.

The purpose of this blog post is to offer a short overview of five considerations the working group came up with in order to contribute to the collective reflection on the complex interactions between academic freedom and responsibility, ethics and human rights.

1.   A focus on external collaborations

The first key consideration was the focus on external collaborations. This focus is narrow and broad at the same time. It is narrow as external collaborations of course do not cover the full range of issues in relation to academic freedom, the role of universities vis-à-vis armed conflicts or human rights. Nor does a focus on external collaborations cover the questions of due diligence e.g. vis-à-vis the university’s own staff, its procurement or the support a university offers – or fails to offer – to those affected by conflicts. That said, the focus on external collaborations is simultaneously broad. The UNIL Rectorate, rightly in my view, quickly decided that the reflections should not be confined to international collaborations or to a specific armed conflict. Universities engage in a wide variety of external collaborations and the configurations of external collaborations and the ethical questions that can arise are numerous – and should have been analysed more systematically much earlier.

2.   What to aim for? A minimum threshold while aiming high

A second key issue was the determination of the objectives to be achieved by an ethics framework on external collaborations. The overarching objective of the framework proposed by the Working Group was to avoid that the university contributes to serious or systematic human rights violations. Much could be said about the fixation of a minimum threshold – the red line the university shall not cross. For the working group, this minimum threshold was that the framework should ‘prevent collaborations from leading to human rights violations and ensure that UNIL does not, as a result of collaboration, provide support to a partner institution or organisation that is responsible for serious or systematic human rights violations, or that assists such violations, unless this support is justified by the planned activities’ (Report, p. 7). For reasons of space, suffice to say that the framework proposes a minimum threshold (i.e. the very least that must be avoided) but intends to operate as a process in which researchers are supported with the aim to achieve the most promising and most ethical research possible, i.e. to aim (much) higher when exercising diligence in their pursuit of knowledge. The framework presumes that responsibility is shared between individual researchers, who must constantly assess the potential consequences of their work, and the institution, which must provide the necessary support and itself scrutinise its institutional relationships.

3.   Distinguishing projects from institutional agreements

A third consideration was the working group’s distinction between research projects (collaborations between individual researchers or groups) and institutional agreements (i.e. inter-faculty or -university agreements). Given that institutional agreements set up privileged institutional relationships, they have a strong political or symbolic dimension. External collaborations in the framework of research projects are extremely diverse and can in some circumstances involve collaborations even with very problematic partners, but only if this is done with great care.

For institutional agreements, the working group found that such agreements should not be concluded with partners that are themselves implicated in serious or systematic violations of human rights. This must be distinguished from partnerships with actors operating in environments where such violations occur, and with whom engagement may be especially warranted as a means of support. The framework proposes that institutional agreements be automatically checked at the institutional level. It was on the basis of these recommendations concerning institutional agreements that the UNIL Rectorate mandated the central University’s Ethics Committee (CER-UNIL) to review two agreements with Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The CER-UNIL published a ten-page ethics opinion, based on which the Rectorate then decided not to maintain the two agreements.

For research projects, on the other hand, the main recommendation of the working group was a three-stage assessment, starting (and in most cases ending) with a straightforward self-assessment. We proposed sensitivity criteria based on the area of research (e.g. pathogens, surveillance technologies, or chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons), the sector of activity (e.g. defence, explosives, or private security), and the context in which the partner is situated (e.g. contexts characterised by armed conflict, authoritarian regimes, or severely restricted academic freedom). If the self-assessment questionnaire does not yield any concerns, the procedure ends there. If the self-assessment indicates that the external collaboration potentially raises concerns, the researcher is invited to refer first to the ethics committee of their faculty. The latter may either issue a certificate of ethical compliance, if a further assessment of the ethical risks linked to the planned research activity, the partner and the context in which the partner is located has made it possible to reasonably exclude non-minimal risks, or otherwise forward the project for an in-depth examination to the central University’s Ethics Committee which may ask for revisions, or can issue a certificate of ethical compliance with or without conditions, depending on the ethical risks involved and their management proposed by the research team. To implement this framework, the working group proposed that a contact point within the university be available where researchers can ask questions at any stage, receive support and guidance without fearing any risk of negative consequences and to enlarge the mandate of the existing university-wide ethics committee (work in progress) so that researchers can also seek approval for the ethical aspects of their external collaborations.

4.   Support and solidarity

Another key point of the report concerns the articulation between negative and positive responsibility. The framework aims to support the institution and individual researchers to think both in terms of avoiding wrongdoing, but also in terms of academic solidarity and support. It is not enough to tell researchers to ‘do no harm’. To systematically reflect on the choices of external partners and collaboration modalities, institutions and those who fund them should proactively take measures to support researchers in the exercise of due diligence, by making available the time and the resources needed to build equitable, sustainable and respectful partnerships; by implementing policies to support threatened academics (such as through Scholars at Risk) and by supporting academic communities in territories affected by serious or systematic human rights violations.

5.   Applicable law questions

What law applies to a university when it engages in external collaborations? The applicable law questions are less simple than what they may seem at first sight. The normative point of departure of the report was that external collaborations must be in line with the Law on the University of Lausanne (a cantonal law which refers to the ‘fundamental scientific and ethical principles’ that the University must obey in fulfilling its missions, as well as ‘respect for national and international provisions concerning the protection of human rights and the environment’) and the (non-binding) UNIL Charter. At least in the exercise of some of their functions, universities are sometimes also bound by constitutional fundamental rights.

From an international law point of view, some authors (e.g. Brems, Lavrysen and Verdonck) and expert groups (e.g. Tilburg Advisory Committee on Partnerships) qualify universities unequivocally as ‘non-state actors’. Yet, depending on the specific conduct in question and the relationship of a university with the state in domestic law, and with important caveats, some conduct of universities is arguably sometimes attributable to the state. Public international law assumes that we can neatly separate legal entities, and notably that we can neatly distinguish the state from corporate entities. This assumption has long been criticised by TWAIL scholars such as BS Chimni. Where the boundaries between the state, the private sector and research are particularly fluid – such as in military and dual-use research – it seems particularly salient to reflect on where to fit universities in this puzzle. It is thus for good reason that international law researchers have begun to explore questions on international law and universities. In the meantime, it should be emphasised that universities are expected, without exception, to exercise due diligence. We would certainly not expect less of a university than what is required for businesses under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.