Corporate accountability for gross human rights violations

Intersectoral workshop organized by Raluca Grosescu, Senior Lecturer, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, and former resident of Paris IAS, with the support of the European Research Council (ERC) and the Paris IAS.

Workshop in English.
To register for the event, please write to Mircea Vâlceanu at corpaccount@politice.ro until 05.07.2022 the latest.

Presentation

In the past 20 years, mobilizations for corporate accountability for gross human rights violations have proliferated across the globe. Ngos, trade unions, legal experts and social scientists have built transnational coalitions to raise awareness, enforce national and international legislation, boycott, and bring to courts multinational companies and their representatives accused of human rights violations.

This workshop explores how transnational social movements build such strategies in primarily four industrial sectors: spyware and digital technologies; arms, weapons, and military training industries; extractive industries; and the banking and finance sectors.

What are the specificities of these industries in respect to gross violations of human rights? What repertoires of contentious action are used to enforce accountability in these four industrial sectors? In what ways, under what conditions, and to what extent are they effective? What challenges and constraints do they confront? How do various industries, companies, and business associations respond to these campaigns given their various financial and reputational interests and organizational cultures? To what extent, if at all, is transnational activism better suited than national/local campaigns to deal with corporate complicity in political violence? Are there different approaches to corporate accountability that fragment and even divide social movements and human rights activists according to regional and professional area of activism?

Programme

9:00 - 9:15
INTRODUCTION

Raluca Grosescu (SNSPA, RO)
Simon Luck (IEA Paris, FR)

9:15 - 10:45
SPYWARE, SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM & HUMAN RIGHTS

John G. Dale (George Mason University, US), Surveillance Capitalism and Corporate Accountability

Khalid Ibrahim (Gulf Centre for Human Rights, LB), International mechanisms to put an end to the targeted surveillance of human rights activists

Marwa Fatafta (Access Now, DE), The MNEMA Coalition to Combat Digital Surveillance

10:45 - 11:00
Break

11:00 - 12:00
EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES, ENVIRONMENT AND MAJOR INTERNATIONAL CRIMES

Maria Isabel Cubides (Independent Expert), Extractive Industry, Justice, and Political Mobilization.

Anna Kiefer (Sherpa, France), Sherpa’s Mobilizations for Corporate Accountability in Extractive Industries.

13:15 - 14:45
ARMS, WEAPONS, AND MILITARY TRAINING INDUSTRIES

Ruxandra Ivan (SNSPA, RO), Private Security Firms and Diluted State Responsibility for Gross Human Rights Violations

Laura Duarte Reyes (European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, DE), Corporate Accountability in Action: Strategic Human Rights Litigation on Arms Trade Exports

Aymeric Elluin (Amnesty International, FR), Weapons Exports: the Accountability of the Defence Industry and its Implementing

14:45 - 15:00
Break

15:00 - 16:00
BANKING SECTOR: WHAT GUILT, WHAT ACCOUNTABILITY

Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky (CONICET, AR), Tracking Down the Missing Financial Link in Transitional Justice

Busisiwe Kamolane (Centre for Applied Legal Studies, ZA), Holding Financiers Accountable for Human Rights Violations

16:00 - 16:15
Break

16:15 - 17:30
DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY

Sophie Grobson (University of Nanterre, FR), UN Treaty on Business and Human Rights: For Whom and For What?

Sabine Michalowski (University of Essex, UK), Corporate Accountability in Colombia and its International Dimensions

Raluca Grosescu (SNSPA, RO), Liberal, Neo-Marxist, and Indeginous Approaches to Corporate Accountability

17:30 - 18:30
ROUNDTABLE

Moderator : John Dale (George Mason University, US)
With the participation of all presenters, Jernej Letnar Cernic (Graduate School of Government and European Studies, SI) and Henry Rammelt (SNSPA, RO)

18:30
Cocktail

This workshop is part of the ERC-Consolidator project Transnational Advocacy Networks and Corporate Accountability for Major International Crimes. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 101002993 — CORPACCOUNT). The project is implemented by the National University of Political Science and Public Administration (SNSPA, RO).

Registration

To register for the event, please write to Mircea Vâlceanu at corpaccount@politice.ro until 05.07.2022 the latest.