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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 October 2021
Business and human rights (BHR) has been taught as an academic discipline and field of practice for thirty years.1 Since the first courses at business schools, law schools, and schools of public policy in North America and Western Europe, BHR curricula have proliferated worldwide. BHR course content has expanded to include new international standards, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs); tools for corporate accountability; 2 and examples from the growing body of corporate BHR practice. BHR pedagogy has evolved to embrace multidisciplinary teaching techniques, from business case studies to legal drafting exercises and experiential role plays.3 BHR teaching is taking place in every region, from Africa and Asia to the Middle East and Latin America. Over 350 individuals teach the subject in some form at more than 200 institutions in 45 countries.4 More than 100 universities have added BHR courses to their curricula in the past decade alone. BHR is also taught outside traditional university settings in dedicated workshops and training programmes for professionals, academics and students.5
Conflicts of interest: The author declares none.
Lecturer, Columbia Law School, USA; Interim Chief Operating Officer and Senior Associate, Shift Project; Co-Founder and Governance Committee Member, Teaching BHR Forum. The views expressed are the author’s alone.
1 Santoro, Michael A, ‘Business and Human Rights in Historical Perspective’ (2015) 14:2 Journal of Human Rights 155–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anthony P Ewing, ‘Introduction: Teaching Business and Human Rights’, Teaching Business and Human Rights Handbook (2016), https://teachbhr.org/resources/teaching-bhr-handbook/introduction-teaching-business-and-human-rights/ (accessed 29 July 2021).
2 For a succinct history, see ‘Business and Human Rights’ in Erika George et al, ‘Reckoning: A Dialogue About Racism, AntiRacists, and Business & Human Rights’ (2021) 30 Washington International Law Journal 171, 187–196.
3 Ewing, Anthony P (ed.), Teaching Business and Human Rights (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2022).Google Scholar
4 Membership of the Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum (TeachBHR.org), a global platform for multidisciplinary collaboration among BHR teachers. Members of the Forum, e.g., have contributed 91 BHR syllabi to the Forum’s Syllabi Bank. Columbia Law School, ‘The Teaching Business and Human Rights Syllabi Bank’, https://web.law.columbia.edu/sso/passcode-login?destination=human-rights-institute/initiatives/business-human-rights-global-economy/teaching-business-human-rights (accessed 30 March 2021). The author co-founded the Teaching BHR Forum with Joanne Bauer, Adjunct Professor, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, in 2011.
5 See, e.g., courses offered by the Human Rights and Business Academy (HURBA), @RightsBusiness; Institute for Human Rights and Business, ‘Academy’, https://www.ihrb.org/academy/academy-home/ (accessed 29 July 2021); The Business & Human Rights Summer School, ‘Home’, https://www.bhrsummerschool.com/ (accessed 29 July 2021); The British Institute of International and Comparative Law, ‘Short Course: Business and Human Rights’, https://www.biicl.org/events/11450/short-course-business-and-human-rights (accessed 29 July 2021); and, generally, Business and Human Rights Resource Center, ‘Events’, https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/events/ (accessed 29 July 2021).
6 Dean, Faculty of Law; Associate Professor, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Colombia).
7 Interview with Marco Velásquez Ruiz, Lecturer, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Colombia) (25 February 2021).
8 Interview with Olena Uvarova, Associate Professor, Yaroslav Mudriy National Law University (Ukraine) (30 November 2020). Professor Uvarova notes that BHR education in states formerly part of the Soviet Union has lagged BHR developments in Central and Eastern Europe more broadly.
9 Kharkiv International Legal Forum, ‘Roundtable: Business responsibility in the field of human rights: the experience of the Visegrad Four countries for Ukraine’, https://legalforum.nlu.edu.ua/2017/ (accessed 29 July 2021). Panelists included representatives of the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre.
10 Interview with Olena Uvarova, supra note 8.
11 Interview with Ayesha Jawad, Head of the Nadira Hassan Law Department, Kinnaird College for Women (Pakistan) (12 January 2021). Kinnaird College, established in 1913, is the oldest all-female educational institution in Pakistan. The law department, launched in 2014, has 130 students pursuing their LLB degree.
12 The course was to be taught for the first time in 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Khan offered the course virtually to PhD students only, in September 2020. Interview with Muhammed Asif Khan, Assistant Professor of Law, Bahria University (Pakistan) (4 January 2021). Professor Khan is currently Associate Professor and Head of the Law Department at the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad, Pakistan, where he has added BHR as an elective course for LLB students.
13 In Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province.
14 Ayesha Jawad, ‘Business, Human Rights and Corporate Responsibility: Course Outline’, Nadira Hassan Law Department, Kinnaird College for Women (Pakistan) (Fall 2019), on file with author.
15 Zia ur-Rehman, Declan Walsh and Salman Masood, ‘More Than 300 Killed in Pakistani Factory Fires’, The New York Times (12 September 2012), https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/asia/hundreds-die-in-factory-fires-in-pakistan.html (accessed 29 July 2021).
16 Ewing, Anthony P, ‘Dropping the Ball: Why the Soccer Ball Project is Failing to Protect Workers in Pakistan’ (2008) 6:4 Stanford Social Innovation Review 3–74.Google Scholar
17 Dr. Muhammad Asif Khan, ‘Course Outline: Business and Human Rights’, Department of Law, Bahria University, Islamabad (Pakistan) (Spring 2020), on file with author.
18 Interview with Muhammed Asif Khan, supra note 12.
19 O Uvarova, Y Razmetaeva, K Mandrikova et al, ‘Business and Human Rights’, Curriculum, Yaroslav Mudriy National Law University (Ukraine) (2018), on file with author.
20 Interview with Marco Velásquez Ruiz, supra note 7; Marco Velásquez Ruiz and Carolina Olarte Bácares,‘Business and Human Rights’, Course Outline, Department of Philosophy and History of Law, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, School of Law (2018), on file with author.
21 Government of Colombia, ‘Plan Nacional de Acción sobre Derechos Humanos y Empresas’, Government of Colombia (December 2015), https://globalnaps.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/colombia-nap-espanol.pdf (accessed 29 July 2021).
22 Each professor interviewed teaches BHR in a university law department. Non-law students (e.g., business, engineering, economics) comprise approximately half of the BHR course enrolment at Universidad Javeriana. Individuals developing BHR curricula for business students face similar challenges. Dorothée Baumann-Pauly, Michael Posner and Dan LeClair, ‘The Case for Human Rights in Business Education – A Tool Kit’, NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights (16 November 2020), https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/blogs/2020/11/16/the-case-for-human-rights-in-business-education-a-tool-kit (accessed 29 July 2021).
23 Professor Jawad was first exposed to BHR and the UNGPs in a two-week short course on Human Rights and Asia. Seoul National University Human Rights Center, ‘Sixth International Winter Course: Human Rights and Asia’, Seoul National University Human Rights Center (7–18 January 2019), https://hrc.snu.ac.kr/en/courses/asia/2019 (accessed 2 September 2021). Professor Surya Deva, School of Law, City University of Hong Kong and Member of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, presented a session on the Human Rights Responsibility of Corporations and subsequently connected Professor Jawad to a project in Pakistan supporting the development of BHR course curricula. ABA ROLI, infra note 37.
24 Professors Velásquez and Olarte had both returned to Colombia after completing doctorate programmes in Canada and France, respectively. Professor Khan first encountered BHR in a corporate governance seminar while pursuing his LL.M. at the University of Liverpool (UK). Professor Khan subsequently wrote his PhD thesis for the University of Salzburg (Austria) on the proposed Business and Human Rights Treaty.
25 Interview with Marco Velásquez Ruiz, supra note 7.
26 Ibid.
27 Colombia’s Presidential Advisory Office for Human Rights published a NAP in December 2015. Supra note 21. The Ukrainian Ministry of Justice began a process to develop a NAP in January 2019. National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights, ‘Ukraine’, https://globalnaps.org/country/ukraine/ (accessed 29 July 2021). Pakistan’s Ministry of Human Rights has initiated a process to adopt a BHR NAP. BHR Pakistan, ‘Business and Human Rights Pakistan’, bhr.com.pk (accessed 29 July 2021).
28 Interview with Olena Uvarova, supra note 8. For background on the Ukrainian process, see Olena Uvarova, ‘Implementing the UNGPs in Eastern Europe: Is Ukraine the Example to Follow?’, Rights as Usual (29 March 2021), https://rightsasusual.com/?p=1404 (accessed 29 July 2021).
29 Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association, ‘Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association’, https://bhrscholarsassociation.org/ (accessed 29 July 2021).
30 Interview with Marco Velásquez Ruiz, supra note 7.
31 The bibliography of BHR sources includes publicly available resources from the BHR academic literature, as well as articles on teaching methods, useful websites, videos and online training. ‘Literature and other sources for the course’, Uvarova et al, supra note 19.
32 Claire Methven O’Brien, Business and Human Rights: A Handbook for Legal Practitioners (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2018), accessible at: https://edoc.coe.int/en/fundamental-freedoms/7785-business-and-human-rights-a-handbook-for-legal-practitioners.html (accessed 29 July 2021).
33 United Nations, ‘Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises’, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Business/Pages/WGHRandtransnationalcorporationsandotherbusiness.aspx (accessed 29 July 2021).
34 Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum, ‘Teaching Business and Human Rights Handbook’, BHRHandbook.org (accessed 29 July 2021).
35 Targeted capacity-building webinars and workshops are one way the global BHR community can support local BHR teachers and scholars.
36 Interview with Ayesha Jawad, supra note 11.
37 The American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) conducted a two-year project (2019–20) in partnership with the Lahore University of Management Science (LUMS) et al to provide support for Pakistan law faculty and universities in developing BHR course curricula. The American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative, ‘Pakistan Rule of Law Program’, https://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/rule_of_law/where_we_work/asia/pakistan/ (accessed 29 July 2021).
38 Interview with Muhammed Asif Khan, supra note 12.
