Teaching Business and Human Rights: Challenges and Opportunities

In 1994, I stumbled upon a business course, “Transnational Business and International Human Rights,” that highlighted the relevance of international human rights standards for business managers. It was an eye-opening subject for a human rights-oriented law student with no business background. We discussed labor rights violations in global supply chains and early corporate policies in response to stakeholder human rights concerns over government violations like Apartheid and the crackdown in Tiananmen Square.

Between Tiananmen and Tahrir, “business and human rights” has emerged as a distinct field within the corporate responsibility movement. When I started teaching the subject in 2001, I could draw on examples from a few industries beyond manufacturing, the lessons of new voluntary multi-stakeholder initiatives like the UN Global Compact, and proliferating allegations of corporate complicity with state violations.

Today, informed by the conceptual underpinnings provided by the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the practical experience of companies trying to manage human rights impacts, more and more individuals in the private sector, government and civil society are grappling with the full range of human rights issues touching all business activity and relationships.

Demand for university and professional business and human rights education is growing. The number of courses has increased significantly in the past decade, with the subject now being taught at business schools, law schools, and schools of public policy worldwide. A market for corporate training has formed in the wake of the unanimous endorsement of the UN Guidelines by the UN Human Rights Council last June.

Challenges

As new courses are developed and taught, business and human rights is taking shape as an academic discipline. Those of us teaching the subject had networked only informally until this year. In May, Columbia University brought together twenty instructors at twelve institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom. The long overdue discussion highlighted common challenges and raised questions for anyone teaching, or preparing to teach, business and human rights:

1. Creating the course
   Much like the corporate responsibility function within a company, which can reside in many different places, there is no clear home for “business and human rights” in the university curriculum. At law schools, it may overlap traditional international and corporate law classes. At business schools, it may be viewed as a module within an ethics or sustainability track. Professors note the lack of a clear academic home as an obstacle to developing new courses, despite strong student interest in the subject. Companies are now considering what role in-house training should play in corporate efforts to meet their responsibility to respect human rights. Will universities lag leading companies in business and human rights education?
2. Structuring the course
   Selecting topics is a challenge for teaching such a broad-ranging subject. Most courses cover some combination of: historical perspectives, core principles, standards and institutions, case studies and current issues. Course scope, naturally, is a function of the instructor’s background, student perspectives, and class format. My course structure, for example – defining business and human rights within corporate responsibility; human rights standards; tools for corporate accountability; and corporate human rights best practices – is designed to introduce business-oriented students to international human rights standards while forcing human rights students to think like business managers. Other approaches emphasize trade and policy dimensions, and take up specific issues, such as human rights impacts on vulnerable populations. Key questions: What skills do students need to effectively practice business and human rights in their respective professions? Is there a core business and human rights curriculum?
3. Identifying materials
   The pool of teaching materials is expanding, but the definitive business and human rights textbook has yet to be written. Creating a shared language is a key challenge for practitioners and teachers alike. Human rights concepts are unfamiliar to most business managers, while corporate terminology is foreign to most advocates. Courses rely on a dynamic mixture of international legal and voluntary standards; corporate, NGO, government and international organization reports; legal proceedings; case studies; secondary sources; and selections from a burgeoning academic literature. Assembling and re-assembling one’s syllabus is common with such a rapidly developing discipline.
4. Engaging students
   Business and human rights students tend to be a diverse group, from many countries with a wide range of professional experience. Teaching an emerging, multi-disciplinary subject allows for creative pedagogy. Many instructors are experimenting with alternatives to traditional lectures and classroom discussion, such as simulations, role-playing exercises, debates, teamwork and clinical approaches. Professors are sharing comparative teaching strategies for different students in different geographies. Corporate training will produce even more customized approaches.

Opportunities

1. Connecting teachers
   Participants in the Columbia Workshop identified ways to support ongoing collaboration among teachers worldwide. To expand the network, Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights and Law School Human Rights Institute have launched an online Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum. Participants are sharing syllabi, developing a thematic bibliography, and plan to publish a global directory of business and human rights courses¹. The Forum has already grown to fifty individuals teaching business and human rights at thirty-eight institutions in eleven countries on six continents.
2. Promoting new courses
   With strong student demand and greater attention in emerging markets to the business and human rights nexus, there is an opportunity to develop new courses at universities worldwide. Business and human rights education should be a part of curriculum development assistance between universities. Experienced teachers can assist faculty teaching the subject for the first time. Local research and teaching will strengthen the field as an academic discipline.
3. Mainstreaming the subject
   There is an opportunity in the next few years to mainstream business and human rights education across traditional academic disciplines. Potential partners include existing academic networks working to integrate corporate responsibility topics into university curricula, such as the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative; professional networks, such as global bar associations; and academic associations for law, business and other faculty.
   Students preparing now for careers in law, business, advocacy and government should expect universities to equip them to understand and navigate the intersections of business and human rights. Their future employers certainly will. By 2014, multi-disciplinary business, law and public policy courses on the corporate responsibility to respect human rights should no longer be “eye-opening,” but commonplace.

Footnotes:

1. If you teach business and human rights and would like join the Forum, please contact Anthony Ewing aewing@law.columbia.edu or Joanne Bauer, Adjunct Professor, Columbia University jjb71@columbia.edu with information about your course.