Kish Parella Lectures as Visiting Scholar in Singapore During her stay, Parella lectured on topics from two forthcoming papers.

By Law Communications
October 22, 2025

In August, Washington and Lee law professor Kish Parella served as visiting scholar at Singapore Management University Yong Pung How School of Law. During this time, she also presented forthcoming research at National University of Singapore Law School.

During her stay, Parella lectured on topics from two forthcoming papers. In her seminar at Singapore Management School, she discussed how corporate governance frameworks can integrate human rights considerations to address the challenges companies face in aligning global practices with stakeholder expectations. The presentation was based on her working paper titled “The Human Rights Obligations of Corporate Directors.”

At National University of Singapore, Parella gave a talk titled “Supply Chain Resilience in Emerging Technologies,” based a forthcoming work coauthored with Professor Carla Reyes of SMU Deadman School of Law. Parella and Reyes explore the supply chains for new technologies, such as blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing, where the U.S. has a strong national security interest. They note that achieving this national security goal depends on the resilience of two types of supply chains within the Bitcoin mining industry: analogue supply chains (hardware components) and data supply chains (software components). They provide insights into key risks that could lead to disruption in analogue supply chains or damage to software data supply chains, including environmental, geopolitical, operational, and reputational risks. They also present suggestions for  corporate governance, asset management and disclosure requirements, which has important implications for market actors, investors, and policymakers.

More recently, Parella and Reyes published an article on the Blue Sky blog, Columbia Law School’s blog on corporations and capital markets. The article, “Why Corporate Lawyers Should Care About Supply Chain Resiliency in Emerging Technologies,” continues their discussion of emerging technologies that combine public and private concerns. The authors note that these are hybrid technologies, which rely on two distinct supply chains to operate, and that “the day-to-day burden of achieving resilience falls mainly on private firms.”

“This places contract design, corporate governance, and supply chain management at the center of national security conversations. Contract design, supply chain transparency, incentive alignment, and software governance become the levers through which market actors can meet national security goals. In short, securing national advantages in critical technologies requires combining public law priorities with private law tools that make complex, hybrid supply chains more resilient,” the authors write.

The full post is available on the CLS Blue Sky blog. The source article, “Global Supply Chain Resilience in Emerging Technologies: A Case Study of Bitcoin Mining,” is forthcoming in the Seattle University Law Review and available here.

Parella is a recognized expert in international business transactions and the organizer of several initiatives in the subject, including the Washington and London roundtables on National Security & International Business and a year-long virtual seminar series in international business transactions. She is a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute and an International Research Fellow for Oxford University’s Centre for Corporate Reputation. Parella also serves on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law (ASIL).

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