In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Business & Human Rights

23 Feb

[Jacob Bogart is a human rights lawyer from the United States specializing in business and human rights in Southeast Asia.] On 19 December, three women human rights defenders in Thailand went to court again to face criminal defamation charges brought by Thammakaset Co. Ltd., a Thai-owned poultry company that has filed 39 retaliatory civil and criminal lawsuits against 23 individuals since...

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31 Jan

1 February marks the second anniversary of the coup d’état in Myanmar. In the past year, the situation for the population has only become more fraught and difficult. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that 2,890 individuals have been killed, likely an underestimation, 16,000 have been detained on spurious charges, scores have been tortured, many have been sentenced to death,...

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20 Nov

[Leslie Johns (Twitter: @PoliticsIntlLaw) is a Professor of Political Science and Law at UCLA and author of Politics and International Law: Making, Breaking, and Upholding Global Rules (Cambridge University Press). Margaret E. Peters (Twitter: @MigrationNerd) is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Global Studies at UCLA. Her research on bilateral labor agreements was published in International Studies Quarterly and Theoretical Inquires...

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15 Nov

[Sandra Cossart is the Executive Director of the French NGO Sherpa which fights new forms of impunity linked to globalization. Anna Kiefer is Advocacy and Litigation Officer at Sherpa. Cannelle Lavite is Co-Director of the Business and Human Rights program at the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). Claire Tixeire is a Senior Legal Advisor at the ECCHR.] “Knowingly paying several million dollars to an...

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08 Nov

Via its Minister for the Environment, the Belgian government has announced that it intends to incorporate the crime of ecocide into its Penal Code: A concept now recognized in the national penal codes of 10 countries (Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Vietnam and France), the crime of ecocide refers to all illegal actions that lead to the...

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10 Oct

[Debadatta Bose is a Doctoral Researcher at the Amsterdam Centre for International Law & Amsterdam Centre for Transformative Private Law, Amsterdam Law School, University of Amsterdam.] If one searches the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), one will notice that a search returns no results for the word ‘health.’ If one looks at the more detailed OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, one cannot...

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24 Jul

Call for Papers Call for Submissions - Trade, Law and Development: The Board of Editors of Trade, Law and Development is pleased to invite original, unpublished manuscripts for publication in the Winter ’22 Issue of the Journal (Vol. 14, No. 2) in the form of ‘Articles’, ‘Notes’, ‘Comments’ and ‘Book Reviews’. Founded in 2009, the philosophy of Trade, Law and Development...

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27 Jun

Call for Papers Human Rights and International Investment Law PhD Workshop - Call for Abstracts: The Erasmus Initiative Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity (Erasmus University Rotterdam) is pleased to announce a call for abstracts for a Human Rights and International Investment Law PhD Workshop, taking place online on 27 and 28 October 2022. The Workshop will bring together PhD candidates and investment...

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12 Apr

[Sandra Wisner is a senior staff lawyer with the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), a U.S. human rights organization, working in partnership with the Haiti-based public interest law firm the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI). Kristina Fried is a lawyer and Bertha Justice fellow with IJDH.] At first glance, the garment workers’ protests sweeping Haiti appear to be the result of a grossly inadequate...

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18 Mar

[Jeffrey Vogt is currently the Rule of Law Director of the Solidarity Center and co-founder and Chair of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network. Ruwan Subasinghe is Legal Director at the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and a practising solicitor. He sits on the Boards of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) and...

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03 Mar

[ Dr Elvira Domínguez-Redondo is an Associate Professor of International Law at Middlesex University, London (UK).] The topic of sanctions in general, and their use as an enforcement mechanism linked to human rights violations specifically, is deeply controversial. It encompasses antagonist positions that oscillate between those focusing on the paralyzing impact of an international machinery that requires inter-state cooperation to function, and those highlighting the...

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03 Mar

[Eirik Bjorge is a Professor at the University of Bristol.] Introduction Sanctions are not an invention of the United Nations system: they predate the United Nations and have a long pedigree in the history of inter-State relations. This long pedigree is buttressed by extensive State practice which supports the unilateral right to impose such sanctions. It would therefore be incorrect to assert that only international organs such...

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