Jeff Aresty is based in Houston, Texas, and is an international business and e-commerce lawyer who has led the non-profit Internet Bar Organization (IBO) since 2005. IBO’s mission is to promote and shape the emerging online justice community by advancing the rule of law for the emerging global society.
To assure that a worldwide justice system operates in harmony with land-based legal systems and that the dignity of every human is respected, IBO’s vision is to bring international humanitarian law to cyberspace.
IBO has worked tirelessly toward achieving this vision by organizing a global movement using music, documentaries, publications, concerts, legal empowerment networks, and both long term projects and use cases from around the globe and has become a multidisciplinary movement to create access to justice and economic opportunity for disadvantaged people (primarily women and children) in developing and transitional countries.
IBO’s key innovation has been to bring self-empowering solutions which allow its clients to build sustainable e-commerce businesses that will operate in an open world marketplace based on the design and proof of concept of an open-source “Justice Layer” of the internet. This new “layer” of the internet is the foundation for a fair trade e-marketplace and is intended to catalyze a youth-led movement to empower communities everywhere.
IBO’s first project, PeaceTones® was initiated in 2008 at the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University, to provide musicians in conflict, post-conflict or impoverished areas with access to economic and legal resources through digital platforms. PeaceTones® mentors have trained and educated musicians, artists, and entrepreneurs from conflict zones and impoverished communities in countries around the world in their legal rights and facilitated their access to international markets through innovative internet-based activities. PeaceTones® is an example of IBO’s constant search for inspiring collaborators across the globe, such as the founding director of the IGL, Sherman Teichman, who bring their own talents and outreach to promote equity and justice for all.
Recently, working with Sherman and the Trebuchet, he introduced Jeff to many leaders from academic, government, business, technology and non-government communities, to develop a shared understanding of how to shape a new layer of justice which would be fair and accessible to all. Together with Sherman’s colleagues, Curt Rhodes and Jordan Chaney of Questscope, they are proposing a plan to empower youth to overcome distrust, disinformation, exclusion from justice,
and conflict. Teams have been assembled to:
- Build legal and technical support structures for justice in a new “digital country” in cyberspace– for a culture of respect for the rule of law founded on human dignity and the right to sovereignty of every human being over personal identity.
- Build trust networks for economic empowerment and protection of intellectual assets, particularly in the fields of arts, music and culture.
Jeff’s background both in technology and the law, and as an e-commerce lawyer goes back to the start of his career. He has co-authored chapters on technology and law topics in several books from 2006-2012 including several chapters in the casebook, Cyberlaw: Text and Cases (2011, SouthWestern Cengage Learning), a chapter on mobile technology and the rule of law in Mobile Technologies for Conflict Management (2011, Springer) and a chapter on “Online Dispute Resolution and Justice” in Online Dispute Resolution: Theory and Practice (2012, Eleven Publishing). His most recent article which explains how blockchain technology can empower stateless refugees, the foundation for his current work with Sherman, Curt and Jordan, was published by Lexis-Nexis https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3297182.
Jeff has also taught (both face to face and online) several undergraduate courses on Global Cyberlaw, Law and the World Wide Web, and International Business Transactions at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Jeff earned his law degree at Boston University School of Law in 1976 and a Master of Laws degree in Taxation (1979) and International Banking (1993), both from Boston University School of Law, Jeff has completed training as an international commercial arbitrator and as a certified mediator in Texas.
Email: jeffaresty@gmail.com
Bio on internet: https://www.internetbar.org/board-of-directors/jeff-aresty/
I met Jeff through Convisero mentor Rafi Reisz. He was one of my first INSPIRE fellows. As noted, we began Peace Tones, and went on to collaborate many humanitarian efforts, most recently related to relief for Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced peoples. I introduced one of my former Trebuchet team members, Rachel Svetanoff, to Jeff, and the rest is history.