Pedro Juan Aranguez Diaz, Visiting Scholar at Columbia Law

Hi, I'm Pedro. I'm from Spain. I’m a Visiting Scholar at the Law School. Welcome to ISSO stories.
I study corporations' responsibilities for human rights and environment, so I study how they enforce that across international commerce. It implies multinational corporations. And there is a new rule from the European Union that's gonna impact U.S. business, so that's kind of where I'm focusing now in my time here.

I feel proud of, like, exploring because there are so many different things to do at Columbia. And I think sometimes, especially scholars, they focus a lot on a topic, but here I wanted to be a bit intellectually curious, and I'm in several courses that are not necessarily what I research in, so I'm learning a lot of new ideas. And in the end you learn that they're all interconnected. Like, I'm doing a bit of antitrust, I'm doing a bit of climate law and energy. And you see that in the end, there are a lot of similarities. And that's very cool.

I wish I knew that people would be very open, especially professors, have a very open door to discuss with me what I'm doing, discuss my research, sometimes even read my drafts and give me feedback. So that has been great. I did not know exactly what the Visiting Scholar Program was going to be, but I think it has definitely helped me a lot, and I think it would encourage people to kind of have a plan for before they come here on who they want to talk, what kind of goals they have, because I think in the end, the PhD is a bit like you yourself writing it, but here you really have the opportunity to interact. So I wish I could do that even more.

I love New York because I think it's very diverse. There's talent from everywhere. There’s people with a lot of different cultures and ideas, and that is very cool to kind of challenge what you think from before. I love that I think Columbia is really, really a global place. It doesn't feel like only New York, you know, it's- it's not only New Yorkers.

Daily life and habits. Wow! What does a typical weekday look like for you right now? So I'd say, I usually wake up, I try to go to run as much as I can, not every day, definitely, but I live right next to Central Park, so it's great because I can go to like the Jacqueline Kennedy Reservoir and kind of run around there, and it's just so beautiful. And in Madrid, I live next to Retiro, so it feels like my parallel life. Like, I got this park in Madrid, and here, I got Central Park, so that's beautiful. And then I spend most of the day at the office or the library. There are some other Visiting Scholars, so we usually are together. At lunch, also, there's a lot of talks going on and a lot of things, so I try to join something. And then, I think during the evening something that we're doing well is kind of disconnecting. And we usually go to Brooklyn or Williamsburg and try to grab some drinks with some friends. So, that's- that's also cool. There's a lot of opportunities in New York, so I think that it's hard to choose because there are so many things going on at the same time.
So now there is still good weather, I try to do a lot of outdoor plans, and I'm reserving the museums for later - well tomorrow night, but.

We went to the Hispanic Society. There is a wonderful, wonderful building. And it has so many important artists. Sorolla, who is a very, very famous artist from Spain, made the whole wall specifically for them, and it's all scenes of different regions of Spain. So people back in the day, like one century ago, could go there, Spaniards, and kind of remember the region even if they were here. So it's- it's super beautiful. And I think, like, you know, I didn't know that as a tourist. And I think there are just like 100 things like that in New York that are so impressive, so.