Professor Erika R. George is the Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, & Engagement, Professor of Law, and Ernest Haddad Faculty Scholar at Boston University School of Law and a leading expert in business and human rights.
Professor George is the author of “Incorporating Rights: Strategies to Advance Corporate Accountability” (Oxford University Press, 2021), which examines the evolution of demands for corporate responsibility to respect international human rights. She was a founding member of the editorial board of the Business and Human Rights Journal (Cambridge University Press) and since 2022 has served on the board of Shift.
Before joining BU Law in 2024, Professor George spent over two decades at the University of Utah as the Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law. She directed the Tanner Humanities Center for four years and worked to enhance engagement and expand and diversify audiences for public humanities programs during her tenure. She also advocated for academic freedom and the right to read. Along with the former poet laureate of Utah, she co-founded the PEN America Utah Chapter to protect access to information and prevent censorship.
Professor George is an elected member of the American Law Institute, an American Bar Foundation fellow, a trustee of Earthjustice, and serves on the Executive Board of the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights.
She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Society of American Law Teachers’ M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award and the Salt Lake City Human Rights Commission Human Rights Award.
Professor George earned her BA with honors from the University of Chicago, a MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago, and a JD from Harvard Law School. She also clerked for Judge William T. Hart of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She was a litigation associate at the law firm of Jenner & Block in Chicago before joining Human Rights Watch as a research fellow.
We recorded an interview with Professor George when she joined Shift’s Board in February of 2022. It is available here.
