We invite you to join us to engage with leading business and human rights (BHR) scholars to discuss significant and landmark publications in the field.
We will identify pressing topics and themes for future BHR scholarship, as well as what they mean for learning about BHR in universities.
This series of online sessions will provide an interactive platform for conversations about BHR scholarship, teaching and beyond.
Robert Phillips, Professor of Sustainability and George R. Gardiner Professor in Business Ethics, York University’s Schulich School of Business, Canada.
Title: “Bringing together business and human rights with stakeholder theory”
Rob will first discuss the philosophical foundations of BHR and then engage in conversation with Harry Van Buren and Judith Schrempf-Stirling about their working paper that brings BHR together with stakeholder theory. The audience will then consider some key philosophical questions, such as is BHR liberal? If not, what are its foundations? Or does it need such foundations? How does the answer alter our expectations for the theory? If BHR does rest on liberalism, how broadly does it define positive duties? Or is it safer and more convincing to think of rights as negative injunctions against rights violations?
We will end the series this summer by hosting a panel on teaching BHR – just in time for those who are revising their syllabi for the next academic year. Our panellists will discuss their pedagogical approach to BHR, given its varied audiences, engaged learning activities, and how to teach BHR in a politically charged environment. This panel will be co-organized with the Teaching BHR Form.
The panel will be Chaired by Dr Judith Schrempf-Stirling, Associate Professor at Geneva School of Economics and Management and we are delighted to welcome three panellists:
We look forward to returning to the Essential Conversations series with our monthly BHR reading group resuming on 17 September 2025. More details to follow soon.
Please do get in touch with suggestions for speakers you’d like to hear from!
Florian Wettstein, Professor of Business Ethics at University of St Gallen, Switzerland, in conversation with Harry Van Buren, Lupton Patten Endowed Chair of Business Ethics at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA.
You can watch the recording on YouTube.
Elisa Giuliani, Professor of Management at the Department of Economics and Management of the University of Pisa, Italy.
Title: Dual Failure of Democracy: How Businesses Infringe on Human Rights and Avoid Taxes
Elisa will draw from her work with the rebalance project, a collaboration between seven European universities and an international NGO. It seeks to provide new insights, resources, events, and learning materials to help foster a rebalancing of capitalism and democracy. The project is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe funding program and Innovate UK.
You can watch the recording on YouTube.
Vivek Soundararajan, Professor of Work and Equality at the University of Bath School of Management, UK.
You can watch the recording on YouTube.
Tricia Olsen, Professor and the Stassen Chair of World Peace at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs and Department of Political Science, USA and Daniel Marín López of Los Andes University in Bogotá.
Title: “How does the use of legal sanction shape corporate behavior?”
Tricia and Daniel will be discussing their research on strategic litigation, or the use of legal sanctions to shape corporate behavior. They will share the varied goals of strategic litigation, which involve both victim-oriented goals and movement-oriented goals, the challenges therein, and the current state of play in this field.
You may like to read this article from justiceinfo.net by Tatiana Devia and Daniel Marin Lopez on addressing the corporate complicity of Chiquita in armed conflict: Insights from the Chiquita trial: 25 years of struggle.
You can watch the recording on YouTube.
If you have any further questions please send us and email