This short course on Business and Human Rights has been designed to offer a wide range of professionals an intensive look at two key business and human rights issues: shareholder engagement and activism and access to remedy for business-related human rights harms. The two-day course will explore each of these issues providing the latest research, up-to-the-minute policy developments and will describe some of the more innovative company practices and civil society approaches in both areas. Through a mixture of lecture, role plays and group discussions, this course will offer participants a unique opportunity to engage with the course teachers who are leading professionals from business, multilateral organisations, civil society and academia in the business and human rights field.

Course highlights

Shareholder engagement and activism: Hear from leading professionals from business about how they engage with shareholders and activists on human rights issues and what about this engagement is unique. The sessions will explore the relationship between reporting, shareholder engagement and shareholder efforts to effect change in company practices. Strategies for shareholder activism will also be explored.
‘Remedy’ for business-related human rights harms: Explore what ‘remedy’ means in human rights law and standards and how this applies to companies. Participants will hear about the latest ‘remedy’-related research being carried out by the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, will get a glimpse of some innovative company practices related to ‘remedy’, will hear about the range of grievance mechanisms used in the business and human rights context, and will hear about cutting edge approaches to bringing legal suits for business-related human rights harms. The role of in-house, external or plaintiff-side lawyers in ‘remedy’ will also be discussed.

Why take this course?

This course aims to introduce you to the latest academic work, most innovative company practices and investor and civilsociety perspectives regarding shareholder engagement and human rights; and the latest academic and policy work, legal developments, company practices and civil society approaches related to remedy for business-related human rights harms.

Convenors

The course is convened, and each session chaired by, Andrea Saldarriaga and Andrea Shemberg

ANDREA SALDARRIAGA: Andrea is co-Lead of the Investment & Human Rights Project at the LSE. She is a member of the roster of experts to the Project Complaint Mechanism at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, a fellow of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and a member of the International Investment Agreements expert network of UNCTAD. Andrea also teaches business and human rights at ESSEC Business School in Paris and ESCP Business School Europe. She is trained as an international lawyer, and her practice has focused on international arbitration, international investment law and human rights. Since 2007, Andrea has worked as an independent consultant providing advice on investment cases and working on a range of projects with international organisations, not-for-profit and academic institutions in her
areas of expertise.

ANDREA SHEMBERG: Andrea co-leads the Investment & Human Rights Project at the LSE. She is an Advisor to the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights and teaches business and human rights law and policy at the Center for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee. From 2007 to 2011, Andrea served as Legal Advisor to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, John Ruggie (SRSG). She advised on a range of international law issues, and assisted in the development of the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. She also led the SRSG's work on investment and his project to realise the Principles for Responsible Contracts. She began her legal career as a management-side employment and labour law lawyer with a commercial law firm in the United States before completing her MSc in Human Rights at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Andrea also served as Legal Advisor to the Economic Relations team at Amnesty International UK and established the first Economic Relations team at the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva.

Teachers

This course is taught by a team of leading specialists including:

KATHRYN DOVEY: Dovey web (2) Kathryn is Manager-National Contact Point Coordination at the OECD. She is based in the Responsible Business Conduct Unit where she is responsible for supporting National Contact Points (NCPs) in their mandate as promoters of the OECD Guidelines and as non-judicial grievance mechanisms. Kathryn joined the OECD in 2014 to work at the Global Forum on Tax Transparency where she supported developing countries in the fight against international tax evasion.

Prior to joining the OECD, Kathryn was Director of the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights, a business-led programme focused on implementing the United Nations Guiding Principles on business and human rights. Over the past decade Kathryn has provided business and human rights expertise to governments, business and civil society in a wide range of countries including Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, India, Jordan, Liberia, Myanmar and Russia. In 2014, she was recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. She has lived and worked in Canada, France, Portugal and Russia.

PROFESSOR JAN EIJSBOUTS: EIJSBOUTS 1 is Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility and Professorial Fellow at the Institute for Corporate Law, Governance and Innovation Policies at the Faculty of Law, Maastricht University and Former General Counsel and Director of Legal Affairs of Dutch multinational AkzoNobel. Professor Eijsbouts is a member of the Gaemo Group, Corporate Responsibility International, Chairman of the Board of the World Legal Forum Foundation and past member of the Board of ACCESS Facility Foundation, of which he was a co-founder (both at The Hague). He is also a member of the International Advisory Boards of the Mentor Group (Boston) and the CEELI Institute (Prague) and member of the Public Private Network of HiiL (The Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law) and an accredited mediator at CEDR, ACB and the PRIME Finance Foundation (The Hague).

PETER FRANKENTAL: Peter joined Amnesty International UK in 1998, and is currently the Economic Relations Programme Director. His previous career included six years as a business analyst in the private sector and four years as a project manager within the UK National Health Service. He has also worked in the field of social regeneration, running capacity-building programmes for community organisations. Peter’s first degree was in Mathematical Statistics and he has subsequently undertaken postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics (MSc Econ),the Institute of Latin American Studies (MA), and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (MSc).

Peter has been an adviser to the International Commission of Jurists panel on corporate complicity, and was on the Steering Group of a three-year research project (2004-2007), to develop a methodology for human rights impact assessments and apply it to five case studies of affected communities. He currently serves on the Board of the Corporate Responsibility Coalition of NGOs (CORE), as a trustee of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, and of Music in Detention, an organisation that runs music workshops in Immigration Detention Centres.

INGRID GUBBAY: Gubbay, Ingrid2 Ingrid has been a practicing claimant lawyer and part time academic in Australia and the UK for 22 years. She is currently the head of the Business and Human rights law practice at the London based law firm of Hausfeld & Co.

The practice specialises in corporate accountability, chiefly by bringing international group actions against UK and EU based multinationals whose business activities adversely impact communities abroad. More recent cases range from mining operations in South Africa and Zambia to factories in India and Kazakhstan. The practice also provides extensive advisory work to international and domestic civil society organisations, and high level EU and international forums concerned with access to justice by promoting procedural reforms and judicial remedies.

MARK HODGE: Mark has been working in the field of sustainability and social change for the past 15-years. He is currently the Executive Director of the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights, a business-led organisation focused on advancing corporate respect for human rights around the world. GBI convenes peer-learning sessions for some of the world’s largest multi-nationals, builds awareness among business in diverse markets around the world and adds a business voice to the international policy space. Mark has worked, lived and conducted field trips in diverse geographies including being based in India between 2008 and 20012. He regularly speaks alongside leaders from government and civil society at high-level international events. Prior to his role at GBI, Mark was a member of the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights secretariat; worked as a consultant advising and training companies on respect for human rights; co-founded the hub, now a global network of social impact spaces for entrepreneurs and worked on community-led social enterprise development in East London. Mark is a trained facilitator, is passionate about organisational learning and believes in meaningful dialogue as a basis to address major social and environmental challenges. Mark graduated from the University of London with a first class honours degree in Political Theory.

VALERIA PIANI: Valeria P2 Valeria is Associate Director, ESG Engagements for the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). Valeria joined the PRI in June 2008. She is responsible for a range of investor-company engagements on specific on environmental, social and governance topics. Before joining the PRI, Valeria worked in international development cooperation for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Development Programme in Argentina. She also worked in Italy as consultant on corporate communications and CSR for multinational companies. Valeria graduated in International Public Administration and Development at the Luigi Bocconi Business School of Milan. She also completed a Master of Arts in CSR at the University of Nottingham Business School with a dissertation on the effectiveness of shareholders’ collaborative engagement activities with companies on ESG issues. Her research has been published by the Business & Society Journal and Emerald Group Publishing and it has been selected by the Editors as an Outstanding Author Contribution in the 2014 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence.

RON POPPER: Ron has been closely involved in the business and human rights agenda for over a decade. He has been head of Corporate Responsibility at ABB, a global leader in power and automation technologies headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, since 2006 overseeing the company’s human rights and community performance, working globally to embed human rights into the company’s policies and practices, and leading training programmes in different parts of the world. As part of his work at ABB, he is regularly involved in stakeholder relations (UN, NGOs, investors), and manages sensitive issues and projects in high-risk countries. Ron is a regular speaker at international business and human rights conferences, and is a member of advisory boards or organizations working on this agenda both internationally and in Switzerland.

Ron spent most of his career as a newspaper and radio journalist and executive working in the United Kingdom, Middle East and Switzerland before joining ABB in 2001.

ANNA POT: Pot Anna_November 2015 Anna is senior sustainability specialist and has worked for APG since February 2008. Anna is responsible for dialogue with companies on sustainability topics and for APG’s exclusion policy. Anna has engaged with a large number of global operating companies about human rights and labour issues.

Before she joined APG, Anna was coordinator of the human rights and business sector program of Amnesty International Netherlands, and was previously fund manager of a sustainable investment fund at ING.

ANNA TRIPONEL: Anna is a solicitor of England and Wales, New York attorney and Paris lawyer (non-practicing), specialised in advising companies, their in-house legal departments, law firms and investors on business and human rights. She consulted for the Harvard Kennedy School of Government to support the mandate of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie, which led to the development of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. At Shift, she played a leading role in the development of the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework. Other positions include corporate associate at the law firm of Jones Day, legal advisor at the World Bank and New York office director at the Public International Law & Policy Group.

DR JENNIFER ZERK: Jennifer is a freelance writer, researcher, teacher and consultant specialising in law and corporate social responsibility. She holds a LLM from the University of London and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her book “Multinationals and Corporate Social Responsibility” is now widely regarded as a standard
international law text on business and human rights. She is a regular contributor and adviser in relation to UK and EU policy initiatives and consultations. Internationally, she is a respected and sought after consultant, commentator and speaker. She has advised on a number of significant law reform and policy initiatives in the business and human rights field including, most recently, as lead legal consultant on the Accountability and Remedy Project of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course you will:

Have a clear understanding of how shareholder engagement on human rights issues can be linked to improving business practices
Be able to explain how shareholder engagement on human rights is distinct from or similar to engagement on issues around environment, social and governance (ESG) issues
Be able to compare your organisation’s practices to leading companies’ approaches to reporting and shareholder engagement on human rights issues
Have in-depth knowledge of the latest legal and policy developments that relate to ensuring access to remedy for business-related human rights harms
Appreciate the spectrum of approaches that contribute to ensuring remedy for business-related human rights
Critically evaluate whether particular approaches to grievance offer access to remedy for business-related human rights harms
Discuss the role of lawyers and in-house counsel in remedy for business-related human rights harms
Critique your own organisation's existing policies and practices on business and human rights and propose ways to strengthen them applying the knowledge gained

Fees and administration

The standard course fees are:

Business / Corporate rate: £2,200 Register here
NGO / Charity / Individual rate: £1,200 Register here
10% Discount for LSE students, alumni and staff: In order to claim the discounted rate (£1,080) LSE alumni, student and staff should contact the Course Administrator from their LSE email account, or in the case of alumni, with details of the programme they took. Once eligibility is verified, the registration link will be provided and applicants can then book online.
Subsidised rate: The Centre is able to offer up to five subsidised places at £700 in support of those who would otherwise be unable to take the course. Discounts can be negotiated for organisations wanting to send several individuals.

Subsidised places for those who would otherwise be unable to attend: Applications for subsidised places will be competitively assessed together after the deadline of Noon, Thursday 26 May 2016, and places will be awarded on the basis of merit and financial need. Subsidised place application form (MS word doc)

Priority will be given to those working in non-governmental or voluntary sector organisations who are able to demonstrate a clear benefit to that organisation beyond their personal education and professional development.

Please note that if your application for a subsidised place is not successful you will not be guaranteed a full-price place on the course as standard places are booked on a first-come first-served basis.

Further queries

Please note that while we welcome participants from overseas, the Centre is regrettably not able to provide any additional assistance, financial or practical, in the securing of travel to, or accommodation in, London.

Frequently asked questions about the course