The UN Business & Human Rights Forum: Twelve Years and Counting

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Angela Riley, Chief Justice of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and Professor of Law and American Indian Studies at UCLA, about indigenous sovereignty and human rights in the United States. Together they discuss: the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, what sovereignty means for tribes in the US compared to indigenous communities globally, the tribal government’s relationship to the US federal and states governments, recent changes to the Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s constitution, the Potawatomi judiciary system, and Intellectual Property law in the US and its relation to indigenous knowledge.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates is joined by Bevin Croft and Ebony Flint from the Human Services Research Institute for a conversation about the intersections of mental health and human rights in the wake of new guidance on mental health issued in October 2023 by the World Health Organization and the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. They discuss the guidance and the Human Services Research Institute, a rights based approach to mental health system, peer to peer support, the importance of centering those with lived experience, and person-centered care.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Claire Charters who was recently named in the role of Rongomau Taketake to lead work on the Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Charters is a Professor at the University of Auckland Faculty of Law specializing in indigenous peoples’ rights in international and constitutional law. Together they discuss her new position on the commission, the status of Māori representation in government, the right wing pushback against indigenous rights, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and its implications for Māori sovereignty, and the importance of the 2007 UN Declaration on  the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates talks with Karla Torres and Catalina Martinez Coral from the Center for Reproductive Rights. On November 8, 2023, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) held a landmark hearing on the human rights violations caused by the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the move to ban abortion in the United States.The IACHR is a principle and autonomous body of the organization of American States that monitors human rights across the Americas. The hearing was requested by the Center for Reproductive Rights and 13 other US organizations focused on reproductive health rights and justice, disability rights, and human rights. In this conversation, Torres and Coral discuss the hearing, abortion as an essential human right, the Dobbs decision in the U.S., the feminist-led Legal and Social decriminalization of abortion in Latin America and its impact on the world, and the future of abortion rights in the U.S.Karla Torres has been senior human rights counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights since 2017. She works within the U.S. Human Rights Team and collaborates with staff across various departments, including the U.S. Policy and Advocacy and U.S. Litigation teams, as well as the Center's Global Legal Program. Torres most recently served as a program officer at Equality Now, where she worked in close partnership with grassroots organizations in the Americas to expose human rights violations against women and girls and to promote legal frameworks that would protect against these violations.Catalina Martinez Corral is a feminist from Cali, Colombia. She's currently the vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Center for Reproductive Rights. She is a member of the Causa Justa Movement and one of the plaintiffs in the historic ruling that partially decriminalized abortion in Colombia.  

Today on Justice Matters we take a deep dive into the UN Business Human Rights Forum, which just wrapped up its 12th iteration at the end of 2023. Co-host Aminta Ossom attended the forum and interviewed working group member Robert McCorquodale to get some background on the inner workings of the Forum. Ossom also spoke with long-time attendee of the Forum, Corinne Lewis, a legal consultant who has worked on business and human rights with organizations of all types, to get her perspective on how the Forum has evolved over the years. Together, these two interviews paint a picture of the origins of the Forum; how it has led to the development of a robust sector of business and human rights; the interplay between attendees from business, government, civil society, and rights holders; and the future of the Forum.

On today's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates talks with Jill Collen Jefferson, a civil and human rights lawyer and the founder of Julian, a national organization based in Mississippi that works to attack discrimination in all forms through legal advocacy, organizing, policy, and innovation. With experience on Capitol Hill, at think-tanks, Organizing for Action, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Public International Law and Policy Group, and big law, Jill brings a tremendous depth of knowledge and personal experience to her effort to build the future of civil and human rights. Together she and Maggie discuss: the founding of Julian, how they draw on  international human rights movements to build their civil rights strategy in the US, why focusing on Mississippi is so important, modern day lynchings, and how building community is central to building a new civil rights movement.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Daniel A. Bell, Chair of Political Theory with the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. They discuss topics from Professor Bell’s most recent book, “Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World” which include: academic freedoms in mainland China vs. Hong Kong, what constitutes a morally justified hierarchy, what benefits might be found in a just hierarchy,  perceptions of hierarchy and equality in the West and China, what can the rest of the world learn from China’s particular combination of intellectual histories, the role of international hierarchies, China and the US as global superpowers, censorship in China, as well as Professor Bell’s personal experiences serving as the Dean of Shandong.

On today's episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Shoshana Zuboff, author of the acclaimed book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. They discuss a number of topics from her landmark book including: the idea of surveillance capitalism, the harm of disinformation, the future of democracy in the digital era, the implications of AI and the likes of chat GPT, the status and expectations of government regulation, and where she sees hope for democracy in the power of the people.More information on Shoshana and her book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" can be found on her website shoshanazuboff.com. Her most recent paper, "Surveillance Capitalism or Democracy? The Death Match of Institutional Orders" can be found here.

On this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates, Executive Director of the Carr Center, talks with Sarah Zoen, Associate Director at Pillar Two — an organization that advises businesses on human rights due diligence — about how to navigate shopping for the holidays while keeping human rights and ethical business practices in mind. Together, they offer online resources, best practices, and other tips to help with your holiday shopping.Here's a list of the resources mentioned in this episode:2022 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark by the World Benchmarking Alliance provides a comparative snapshot of 127 of the world’s largest and most influential companies in high-risk sectors. Their methodology considers companies’ policies, processes, and practices to obtain an overview of whether companies are implementing key expectations of the UNGPs. It also considers how companies would respond to serious human-rights-related allegations.2021 Gender Benchmark by the World Benchmarking Alliance provides a comparative snapshot of 35 influential apparel companies on gender equality and women’s empowerment.Fashion Transparency Index ranks 250 of the world’s largest fashion brands and retailers according to their level of public disclosure on human rights and environmental policies, practices, and impacts.Between 2022-2023, Know the Chain benchmarked 185 companies from the information and communications technology, food and beverage, and apparel and footwear sectors looking specifically at forced labor risks in companies’ global supply chains.Be Slavery Free’s Chocolate Scorecard ranks companies’ level of transparency, how they fare on paying workers a living income, whether they use child or forced labor, and their deforestation and climate impact, producing an overall ranking.The UK Government runs a Modern Slavery Statement Registry. The Australian Government runs a Register for Modern Slavery Statements.

On this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Kathryn Sikkink, the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, speaks with two veterans of the human rights movement, John Salzberg and Joe Eldridge. John Salzberg was the key staff member working with Representative Don Fraser to hold the first set of hearings about the US and human rights in 1973, and later went on to work at the Human Rights Bureau at the US State Department. Prior to 1973, human rights were not explicitly incorporated into US foreign policy. Also in 1973, Joe Eldridge founded the Washington Office of Latin America (WOLA), an early human rights NGO, to lobby for support and criticize US human rights policy. Eldridge and Salzberg worked closely for many years. Together they discuss the “golden age” of US human rights policy; the work of congressman Don Fraser; the creation of the Bureau for Human Rights in the US State Department; US human rights foreign policy under Presidents Nixon, Carter, and Reagan; and the legacy of human rights reports on the larger field of human rights. Be sure to check out Harvard' Kennedy Schools newest podcast, Policy Cast: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policycast/more-indigenous-nations-self-govern-more-they-succeed