Who We Are
The Team
The Center’s team is at the University of Oklahoma College of Law in Norman, Oklahoma. Evelyn Aswad, the Herman G. Kaiser Chair in International Law, is the founder and director of the Center. Follow the Center on Twitter: @OULawIBHR
The Cause
U.S. businesses are increasingly finding themselves in difficult operating environments abroad that have weak rule of law institutions and significant human rights problems. At the same time, the U.S. Government expects companies to respect human rights and conduct human rights due diligence in their operations, in line with the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. A recent survey has found a significant number of companies now have human rights policies and companies more often than not expect their lawyers to serve as the implementers of such policies. These expectations require leadership by the legal community and support for U.S. businesses operating abroad. The Center was therefore formed to train future legal leaders in this field and to support research on IBHR matters.
The Mission
- To provide OU Law students with academic training, networking, and practical experience in this emerging field that will equip them to be leaders in this space as well as train the greater legal community and others in IBHR issues.
- To provide academic think tank support on international business and human rights issues, with a particular focus on the energy/extractive sector and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) companies.
What We Do
The Center seeks to achieve this mission by hosting awareness raising events, participating in legal engagement on contemporary IBHR issues, offering cutting-edge courses, and producing relevant scholarship.
The Center focuses its scholarship, legal engagement, events, and courses on the energy and extractive sectors and Internet and Communication Technology (ICT) companies. In its legal engagement, the Center prioritizes providing academic think tank support to multi-stakeholder initiatives in these fields.
In December 2016, Professor Aswad was admitted as an academic participant in the Global Network Initiative. The mission of this initiative is to help companies provide their services without negatively impacting the international human rights to free expression and privacy of users.
The Center also closely follows the work of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. The mission of this initiative is to help companies in the energy and extractive sectors engage the security they need to conduct their operations without negatively impacting the human rights of local populations.
The Center seeks to provide:
- College of Law students and alumni with opportunities to meet leading figures from the business community, government, and civil society who are working on contemporary IBHR challenges
- A venue for discussion of critical IBHR issues.
The Center seeks to influence critical and contemporary IBHR issues in a variety of ways, including by participating in leading multi-stakeholder initiatives involving the energy and extractive sectors and ICT companies, by engaging with international mechanisms, including the United Nation's human rights machinery, by sharing its expertise at international and academic conferences, and by offering training programs for private sector lawyers.
The Center seeks to provide College of Law students with the best possible IBHR law curriculum and overall experience among U.S. law schools. IBHR jobs are growing quickly in the private sector and elsewhere. The Center seeks to pave the way for our students to be particularly well positioned for a growing job market in the private sector and beyond and to make positive impacts in this field. In addition to general international course offerings such as International Law Foundations, International Human Rights Law, International Business Transactions, International Petroleum Transactions, and Comparative Indigenous People’s Law, the following specialized courses are offered: International Business & Human Rights and Human Rights Practicum.
The Center seeks to set the standard with regard to high quality legal scholarship on issues at the intersection of international human rights law and business operations abroad. Additionally, the Center seeks to use its scholarship to help further understandings of key issues and to share the fruits of its research widely, including in multi-stakeholder venues.