Slaves in the Food Chain: When Compliance isn’t Enough

A new law in the U.S. state of California which took effect in January of this year – the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act - requires companies over a certain size with any retail or manufacturing presence in the state to post on their...

Developing Practical Tools for Business on Land and Human Rights

Earlier this week, my colleagues Salil Tripathi and Wambui Kimathi wrote in the Guardian about the difficult ongoing challenges surrounding land acquisition and use in many countries around the world. A key dimension of addressing the many negative...

Is the Organisation Investigating Apple’s Factories Good Enough?

This op-Ed was originally published on Forbes.com.

Under pressure, Apple has opened the doors of its troubled Chinese factories to inspection by labor investigators. Now not only Apple but its proposed monitor, the Fair Labor Association, are...

Kiobel Case a Reminder of Remedy Gaps Still to be Bridged

This week, the United States Supreme Court is at the centre of the global business and human rights agenda.

The Court is hearing oral arguments in Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., a highly anticipated case expected to determine whether claimants...

The Dow Side of Corporate Sponsorship

This op-Ed was originally published on TheHindu.com.

Coke and GE then, Dow now.

But there is a crucial difference: no one was accusing companies sponsoring the Beijing Games of being complicit in human rights abuses in Darfur. In Dow's case, many...

Technology companies, free expression and privacy

Apple has come under heavy scrutiny and criticism in recent months for abusive supply chain labour practices. Its decision to join the Fair Labor Association has been hailed as an important step in the right direction: a public commitment to its...

The Next Generation of Social Responsibility Leaders

"Apple’s decision to join FLA sets a new standard for the technology industry, and reinforces that supply chain issues and protecting workers’ rights are not just the responsibility of apparel and footwear brands. It’s time for another generation of...

Time to establish human rights criteria for selecting corporate sponsors

The resignation of Meredith Alexander from the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 Olympics raises the question of the factors organisers consider in deciding supporters for such major events. Dow Chemical’s sponsorship of the Olympics has been...

Are business leaders ensuring respect for LGBT rights?

"60 years ago, the governments that drafted and passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were not thinking about how it applied to the LGBT community. They also weren’t thinking about how it applied to indigenous people or children or...

Social Media & Human Rights: Keeping the virtual world one step ahead of the real world

"The premise of the virtual world is freedom. Forward-thinking companies, governments, journalists and others with a stake in freedom of expression, as well as the human rights community, must remain vigilant, and work more effectively together to...

Joint Action Needed to Address Land Grabbing

For the past decade, foreign investors have been looking for greener pastures in Africa. Some foreign governments and private enterprises acquire long-term leases of large portions of arable land as part of efforts to secure sufficient food and...

Time for tourism industry to put human rights on its agenda

This week, over 47,000 tourism industry representatives from 189 countries will convene in London for the annual World Travel Market. Business deals worth millions of dollars will be struck and thousands of tourism products will be bought and sold....