Projects
Business and Human Rights
The Center works to raise global awareness about the relationship between business activities and human rights and to promote accountability for business-related abuses.
Business activity has a profound influence on the lives and livelihoods of people around the world. Yet responses to the negative effects of business activity on human rights often emerge in response to specific controversies, cover a limited set of rights, or apply selectively to individual companies or industries or particular regional contexts, such as conflict areas.
The Center works to address this problem by laying bare the enormous impact that businesses have on a wide spectrum of human rights in a variety of industries across the world, analyzing gaps in the international protection regime, and advocating the development of stronger legal standards for business and human rights. To date, the Center has partnered with Human Rights Watch to produce a report illustrating how everyday business decisions have significant implications for the human rights of workers, local communities, suppliers, and consumers.
DOCUMENTATION PROJECT
CALL for PHOTOS: The Business and Human Rights Documentation (B-HRD.org) Project
Do you have photos that show the effects businesses have on human rights? Consider donating them to the Business and Human Rights Documentation (B-HRD) Project.
BHRD.org is a new joint initiative of ESCR-Net and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law. B-HRD is an interactive, multi-lingual information portal that will provide a much-needed legal and advocacy tool to better understand the relationship between business activities and human rights, and to assist in the development of progressive socially responsible business norms. To ensure it is visually compelling, we are now soliciting donations of photographs for use on the website.
Please see the attached flyer for more information.
Contact Information: bhrdatabaseATgmail.com
DOCUMENTATION PROJECT
Business and Human Rights Documentation Project
The Center has partnered with the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net) in creating the Business and Human Rights Documentation Project (B-HRD), a cutting edge web-based advocacy and educational resource that will provide a much-needed legal and advocacy tool to better understand the relationship between business activities and human rights, and to assist in the development of progressive business norms.
REPORT
CHRGJ releases "Transnational Corporations and the Right to Food" in honor of World Food day (2009)
In recognition of World Food day, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law is proud to make public the report Transnational Corporations and the Right to Food. This paper was authored by the group Law Students for Human Rights at NYU School of Law, under the guidance and direction of the CHRGJ and Faculty Director Smita Narula, who in fall 2008 accepted an appointment to be part of the Advisory Board to the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter.
This paper was prepared in Spring 2009 at the Special Rapporteur's request with the aim of informing a multi-stakeholder consultation he convened in June 2009 in Berlin, Germany on the role of the agribusiness sector in the realization of the right to food. The student authors--Aaron Bloom, Colleen Duffy, Monica Iyer, Aaron Jacobs-Smith, and Laura Moy--worked closely with CHRGJ's 2008-09 Center Fellow Lama Fakih, who attended the June consultation alongside the Special Rapporteur.
The Center continues to work closely with Mr. de Schutter in support of his mandate and has made it a project for its 2009-10 International Human Rights Clinic. CHRGJ is also actively involved in other economic, social, and cultural rights issues, including its current work on the right to food in Haiti, which follows up on its 2008 report, Wòch nan Soley: The Denial of the Right to Water in Haiti.
REPORT
Business: Rights at Risk in the Global Economy
Companies Harm Human Rights Worldwide
(New York, February 19, 2008) – People in countries across the world are regularly harmed when businesses fail to respect basic human rights, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York University School of Law.
The clear evidence of widespread abuse and government inaction detailed in the report shows that global standards are needed to ensure that corporate conduct respects internationally recognized human rights.
The 53-page report, On the Margins of Profit: Rights at Risk in the Global Economy, was jointly prepared by Human Rights Watch and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. It illustrates how everyday business decisions have significant implications for the human rights of workers, local communities, suppliers, and consumers.
