Red Flag 15. Business relationships with limited influence to address risk to people

Business relationships with limited influence to address risk to people /

Structuring business relationships in ways that limit the company’s ability to influence decisions or actions that affect the rights of stakeholders.

For Example /
  • Structuring joint venture (JV) partnerships such that the company situates control over decisions on land, employment and/or responses to community concerns with the business partner
  • Structuring client-advisor relationships such that the scope of advice excludes consideration of impacts on people
  • Structuring multi-bank syndicated loans such that a participating bank relies on the due diligence of a lead arranger or E&S (environment and social) coordinating bank
  • Utilizing franchise models in which labor, land acquisition and other rights-relevant issues are not covered by franchise contracts
  • Structuring AI and other technology business relationships such that responsibility for identifying and managing impacts on people is allocated to other commercial actors despite the company retaining significant influence over system design, deployment conditions or commercial incentives
  • Structuring outsourced platform moderation or trust and-safety operations such that responsibility for worker wellbeing or grievance handling sits with third-party vendors despite the company retaining significant influence over how the work is performed
Higher-Risk Sectors /
  • Finance industry
  • Law firms
  • Mining industry
  • Franchised food and beverage companies
  • Construction industry
  • Tourism, Hospitality and Entertainment
  • AI development and deployment
  • Online platforms
  • Companies in various sectors expanding into geographies where conditions of entry only allow non-operating stakes in JV
Download Red Flag 15

Questions for Leaders /

  • How does the company know whether and when the structure of its relationships with business partners may be reducing its ability to ensure that salient human rights risks are effectively managed?
  • How does the company use its leverage at the point of structuring a relationship and defining the roles and responsibilities of different business partners to help ensure human rights risks will be well managed?
  • How does the company discuss and make decisions about the viability of business partnerships where there is no evident way to mitigate salient human rights risks?

Understanding Risks
and Opportunities /

The way in which companies decide to structure their business relationships can have an effect on their ability to meet their human rights responsibilities. In particular, companies may routinely structure relationships in ways that limit their leverage over business partners.

Below are examples of ways in which companies structure relationships that may lead to a reduction in their ability to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for human rights impacts, or may reduce their perception of their responsibility to do so.

  • In a syndicated loan, this may arise where the bank:
    • relies on human rights due diligence conducted or commissioned by another participating bank in the syndicate;
    • has little (direct) interaction with the E&S coordinating bank and/or the other participating banks on human rights impacts;
    • has little interaction with stakeholders potentially affected by the project or those representing their interests
    • has no influence over the creation or effective management of grievance mechanisms for affected stakeholders.
  • In a JV partnership, this may arise where one party takes sole or primary responsibility for communication and dispute resolution with third parties, or where a company situates control over decisions on land and employment with the partner. This can be particularly problematic where the partner with this responsibility is an enterprise wholly or partially owned by a government that has a history of causing or ignoring impacts on vulnerable groups in the country, and the company has little practical leverage available to it.
  • In a franchising relationship, this may arise where contracts retain franchisor control over businesses’ methods, procedures and standards, but not set out requirements on – nor accept responsibility for – rights-related issues such as employment practices, land acquisition, and environmental issues.
  • In an advisory relationship, such as a lawyer-client relationship, this may arise where the advisor limits (or accept their client’s instructions to limit) their advice to exclude some or all potential impacts on human rights, at best closing the door to an important avenue for leverage held by advisors, and at worst playing a role in rendering it more likely that the client will impact rights through the relevant activities. (See related discussion on the role of the corporate legal advisor here).

In circumstances such as those above, a responsibility gap can emerge where neither business partner is engaged with addressing potential impacts, or where the contractual responsibility to do so is situated with a partner less able to do so. Further, a remedy gap emerges where neither business partner engages with grievances, impacting stakeholders’ right to remedy.

  • Operational, Financial and Reputational Risks: A company’s understanding and implementation of its own responsibility in relation to impacts can be undermined when it structures a relationship in ways that limit its own scope for action and its accountability.
    • For example, risks can arise where there are mistaken assumptions that due diligence conducted or commissioned by the E&S coordinating bank in a syndicated loan for project finance is sufficiently thorough. High profile examples of community conflict halting projects have highlighted that each financier is expected to know (and to show) that the HRDD conducted meets expectations: according to Banktrack, banks participating in the financing of the Dakota Access Pipeline “found themselves on the receiving end of the #DefundDAPL divestment campaign after the project violated Indigenous People’s rights – estimated to have cost them between US$8 and $20 billion in deposit withdrawals.”
  • Legal Risks: The have been several lawsuits seeking to hold US company McDonald’s responsible for the treatment of franchise workers. In the United States the responsibility of franchisors to assume responsibility for employment conditions is a contested area. The company has stated that “franchisees are independent businesses that want to make their own decisions about hiring, pay and other matters.” Worker advocacy groups have “argued that many companies use contracting and franchising as ashield from responsibility for workers who make their business possible.” In 2020, a complaint was brought to the Dutch National Contact Point against McDonald’s on the basis that the company had not met OECD guidelines which “require due diligence by institutional shareholders in companies to ensure responsible business conduct.” The complainants alleged that due to “systemic sexual harassment” at franchised restaurants, the company had “neglected to act to create a safe workplace” for franchise employees.
  • Business Opportunity Risks: Where advisors do not advise clients appropriately on the human rights risks associated with corporate decisions or activity, they risk losing repeat business when that advice proves inadequate in practice. The International Bar Association notes that:
    • “There is growing recognition that a strong business case exists for respecting human rights and that the management of risks, including legal risks, increasingly means that lawyers, and particularly business lawyers, need to take human rights into account in their advice and services. The UNGPs are relevant to many areas of business legal practice, including but not limited to corporate governance, reporting and disclosure, litigation and dispute resolution, contracts and agreements, land acquisition, development and use, resource exploration and extraction, labour and employment, tax, intellectual property, lobbying, bilateral treaty negotiation, and arbitration.”

*For an explanation of how companies can be involved in human rights impacts, and their related responsibilities, see here.

The parties to a business relationship may decide to allocate formal responsibilities in a particular way in their agreements – including responsibilities for identifying and addressing human rights risks. However, that does not remove them from any responsibility should human rights harms occur. For example, a company will still have a responsibility as a result of being linked to (and in some cases potentially contributing to) human rights impacts:

  • In the context of a JV:
    • whether it is a majority or minority stakeholder;
    • whether or not it has primary responsibility for communication and dispute resolution with third parties;
  • In the context of advice to clients:
    • regardless of unilateral or agreed caveats with respect to what the advice does and does not address;
  • In the context of syndicated loans for project finance:
    • regardless of decisions on who will conduct/lead due diligence.

Similarly, a franchisor will still be linked (or potentially contributing) to impacts caused by franchisees vis-à-vis franchise employees.

Business relationships that are structured in these ways will typically affect the company’s ability to exercise leverage to mitigate human rights risks or impacts unless specific measures are included to address this. Where human rights impacts were foreseeable and the company still took on a role where its control or leverage was limited, this may be seen to suggest that the company contributed by omission to impacts caused by a business partner.

Where a company retains and uses leverage with business partners to strengthen respect for human rights, it can contribute to various SDGs. It may also build the capacity of its partners to contribute to the SDGs, by helping them understand and implement their own responsibilities, thereby contributing to:

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals, in particular: Target 17.6 Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries. Target 17.17 Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships.

Taking Action /

  • Do we clearly communicate our human rights expectations to our partners?
  • For joint ventures with significant human rights risks, do we ensure that legal and other agreements underpinning the ventures provide the necessary basis to ensure that human rights are respected in their operations? (See OHCHR and Business Dilemmas Forum)? For example:
    • How do our agreements with partners allocate roles with relevance to the human rights of stakeholders, such as decisions on land,employment or dispute resolution with third parties?
    • How do we ensure our partners carry out these roles in ways that respect human rights?
    • Do we have pre-agreement on how human rights incidents and disputes will be dealt with, once they arise?
    • Do we have the right to conduct audits of overall human rights compliance?
    • Do we have the right to terminate the agreement in the event that human rights non-compliances are identified during such audits and are not rectified within a reasonable amount of time?
  • How thorough are our due diligence procedures and do they include human rights risks? Do we tend to defer to or rely on processes of another partner without our own investigations? Are we prohibited from making contact with stakeholders by our agreements with business partners? How do we identify gaps between others’ processes and international human rights standards? How do we address these gaps? Do we look for early opportunities (e.g. at point of market entry) to create leverage? Do we include a leverage mapping into our due diligence procedure?
  • Does the structure or duration of the relationship significantly limit our leverage?
  • Do we have or participate in an effective grievance mechanism through which affected persons can raise human rights issues related to our partners’ activities?
  • Do our agreements with partners contain confidentiality or consent requirements that constrain our ability to disclose information about our operations in higher risk areas? If so how do we ensure that stakeholders have access to information relevant to understanding how they may be affected and to claiming their rights?

*Mitigation examples are current or historical examples for reference, but do not offer insight into their relative maturity or effectiveness.

There are numerous examples of a company seeking to influence the behavior of a business partner, including where that partner has primary responsibility for areas that impact rights.

(The following anonymized examples are adapted from Shift’s publication, Using Leverage in Business Relationships to Reduce Human Rights Risks).

  • Shadowing Partners: A company has shadowed a joint venture partner as it conducted a stakeholder engagement.
  • Seconding Staff: A company has seconded staff to a JV operation to lead on community relations and/or human rights risk management.
  • Shared Audits: A company has conducted an internal audit of its own human rights performance at an operation, and shared results with key business partners, with an invitation/ offer to collaborate with them on addressing shared challenges, as well as on future such audits.

In the context of syndicated loans, responsible banks individually evaluate projects or borrowers against their own human rights and project-specific policies, including to address gaps between standards applied by the E&S (environment and social) coordinating bank and expectations under the UN Guiding Principles. Even where a bank has a smaller ticket in a syndicated loan, recognized expertise in the field of social impacts has allowed such banks to exert outsize leverage with other participating banks to ensure potential social impacts are adequately considered and addressed.

  • Contract Provisions: Companies have negotiated various human rights-related provisions in contracts with business partners that created leverage later in the relationship. Examples include contract provisions that:
    • set out a commitment to meet certain standards (e.g., Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, IFC Performance Standards);
    • give the company (even when a junior partner) the lead in managing human rights-related issues or in staffing the community relations function at an extractive project;
    • require a higher voting majority of the board on human rights-related issues.
  • Company Policies and Code of Conducts: Companies have negotiated the inclusion of references to their own standards or policies in joint agreements, such as a Code of Conduct or policies on security. In the context of non-operated joint ventures, Total reports that it “make[s] ongoing efforts so that the operating party applies equivalent principles to ours.”
  • Multi-stakeholder (Industry) Initiatives (MSIs) with Human Rights Commitments: A company may require or suggest that a partner join a credible multi-stakeholder (industry) initiative, or may jointly join an initiative with them: for example, PNG and FGB jointly joined the FLA in furtherance of “a desire to drive long-term change in the palm oil supply chain for the industry as a whole.” Companies have [also] highlighted partners’ existing commitments – including those made in the context of MSIs – when seeking to exert leverage to bring the partner’s attention to addressing impacts.
  • Introducing a Non-Essential Partner with Strong Standards: Companies have involved the International Finance Corporation as a small percentage financier of a project, so they could reference their Performance Standards in project contracts and in broader discussions with project partners.
  • Strategic Role: Some companies identify the committees with oversight of areas likely to be associated with salient human rights impacts associated with a joint venture (e.g. health and safety; procurement or sustainability), and ensure they play a strategic role in them, even when they are a minority partner.
  • Capacity Building: A company may extend training and other capacity and awareness building activities to partners and/or industry players to enhance and to bolster the likelihood of their conducting adequate human rights due diligence.
 

There may be opportunities for increasing leverage to address actual and potential human rights impacts in a joint venture context through a coordinated approach. For example, in 2016 BHP created the Non-Operated Joint Ventures (NOJV) Asset within Minerals Americas in order to establish effective engagement with its joint venture partners and companies in line with BHP’s Charter. The Asset creates a single point of accountability with responsibility for all non-operated joint ventures in Minerals Americas and its purpose includes having transparency over JV companies’ risks and opportunities, in an active feedback process, whilst maintaining the JV company’s management independence.

General:

Joint Ventures:

Finance:

Project Finance:

Corporate Lending:

Legal Advice:

Citation of research papers and other resources does not constitute an endorsement by Shift of their conclusions.

Dr. Christine Chow /

Board Member

She/Her

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Dr. Christine Chow has more than 25 years’ experience in investment management spanning sustainable investment, corporate governance, technology and AI.

She has held senior leadership roles at UBS Asset Management, HSBC Asset Management and Federated Hermes, where she led global stewardship, thematic research, responsible investment and engagement with companies on sustainability and governance issues. She was the human rights engagement lead at Federated Hermes, where she pioneered its approach to global value chain engagement with electronics companies, and advocated for provenance and traceability of critical minerals.

Christine served as Managing Director at UBS Asset Management, leading on global stewardship, thematic research and impact engagement. Previously, she was Global Head of Stewardship and a board member of HSBC Asset Management UK Limited, and Head of Asia and Global Technology at Federated Hermes EOS. From 2019 to 2025, she served as a board member and then Chair of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), a global investor-led organisation representing around US$100 trillion in assets under management across more than 40 countries.

Christine is recognised internationally for her work on responsible investment, AI governance and corporate stewardship. She has published influential work on responsible AI and data governance and was a member of the UK Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence, serving on its Data Governance Task Force. She is the Appointed Advisor of AFRC in Hong Kong, the independent regulator of the accounting profession, and Emeritus Governor of the London School of Economics. Her PhD research on responsible investment was shortlisted for a United Nations award recognising industry relevance and academic excellence.

David Vermijs /

Director

He/Him Amsterdam

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As Director, David engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

Specializes in Business Enterprises

As Director, David engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

David has over a decade of experience advising multinational corporations, governments, NGOs and others on business and human rights. Prior to joining Shift, David provided research assistance to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for business and human rights John Ruggie. As part of his contributions, David field-tested human rights due diligence with a group of Dutch companies and their stakeholders, and he supported research on company-led grievance mechanisms.

From 2008 to 2010, David was the lead consultant on an 18-month project, the Business and Human Rights Initiative, under the umbrella of the Global Compact Network Netherlands. The initiative was a collaboration between 10 Dutch multinationals – ABN AMRO, AkzoNobel, Essent, KLM, Philips, Rabobank, Randstad, Shell, TNT and Unilever – and led to the publication of a ground-breaking business guidance tool, How to Do Business with Respect for Human Rights, in 2010. Through his work at Shift, David led the update of this publication from 2014 to 2016 with the support of the Dutch government under their National Action Plan on implementing the Guiding Principles.

Another major guidance tool David has helped develop addresses due diligence on child labor, published by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) in 2015. The guidance was the result of a multi-year, multi-stakeholder, multi-country project led by David involving the ILO, IOE, companies, unions, NGOs and other stakeholders.

David was previously a Research Fellow at the Corporate Responsibility Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School, including assisting in teaching on business and human rights, global governance, corporate governance and leadership. David sits in a personal capacity on the board of the Dutch Social and Economic Council International Corporate Social Responsibility Committee. He has a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts in Business from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. David is a Dutch national, speaks English and Dutch and is proficient in Spanish and German.

Anna Triponel /

Senior Associate

She/Her London

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As a Senior Associate with Shift, Anna advises companies, lawyers, investors and business associations on how to put the Guiding Principles into practice.

As a Senior Associate with Shift, Anna advises companies, investors and business associations on how to put the Guiding Principles into practice. Trained as a lawyer, Anna focuses particularly on working with legal professionals on their role in implementing the Guiding Principles and has led work on analyzing regulations in various jurisdictions and how they align to the Guiding Principles. She also has particular expertise on the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework. 

Prior to joining Shift, Anna provided input to the work of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for business and human rights John Ruggie as a legal consultant. During this period, Anna also opened the New York office of the Public International Law & Policy Group, where she advised government officials, opposition leaders, human rights victims and civil society organizations on human rights, constitutional reform and transitional justice in Burma, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Somaliland, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Anna was previously a mergers and acquisitions associate at the law firm of Jones Day in New York, where she advised a broad range of multinational companies on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint venture, private equity and venture capital transactions. She founded and led the law firm’s International Law Pro Bono Group. She began her career as an advisor to the World Bank, advising on development governance structures to better meet the Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education.

Anna is a (non-practicing) lawyer qualified in New York, England & Wales and France. She is a frequent expert speaker and writer on business and human rights and is the recipient of various professional awards, including the Empire State Counsel Award for changing the lives of those unable to afford counsel and the Seymour-Reuben Award for shaping international law. Anna has a Masters in International Law from American University Washington College of Law and a degree in common and civil law from the University of Paris X. She has been awarded the Business Sustainability Management certificate from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and the MBA Essentials certificate from London School of Economics (LSE). Anna is a British and French national and speaks English and French.

Martyn Platt /

Head of Human Resources

He/Him

As Head of Human Resources, Martyn leads Shift’s global people strategy and oversees all aspects of HR across the organization.

As Head of Human Resources, Martyn leads Shift’s global people strategy and oversees all aspects of HR across the organization. He ensures that Shift’s systems, policies and practices foster a thriving, inclusive and values-driven culture that supports our mission to embed respect for people’s dignity at the core of business practice.

Martyn brings over a decade of HR leadership experience across mission-driven and international organizations working at the intersection of business and society. Prior to joining Shift, he was Director of People Development & Culture at the PRI and earlier worked with Business in the Community. In these roles, he developed and embedded HR business partnering models, guided the organizations through significant growth and transformation, and partnered with senior leaders to design and implement people strategies that supported the delivery of their mission. Most recently, he served as a consultant with the WeProtect Global Alliance, where he supported the establishment of their HR function.

He is a Chartered Member of the CIPD and holds a Level 7 Diploma in Human Resource Management, as well as an ILM Level 7 Certificate in Executive Coaching and Mentoring, reflecting his strong focus on leadership development and coaching. Martyn studied German and International Relations at the University of Exeter, including a year at the University of Würzburg in Germany. He later worked on education projects in Nicaragua, strengthening his global outlook and commitment to people-centred change.

Martyn is based in the United Kingdom.

Brianna Peterson /

Senior Advisor

She/Her Rome

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As a Senior Advisor at Shift, Brianna advises financial institutions and companies on how to put the UNGPs into practice, with a particular focus on the nexus between human rights and climate change.

Specializes in Financial Institutions

As a Senior Advisor at Shift, Brianna advises financial institutions and companies on how to put the UNGPs into practice, with a particular focus on the nexus between human rights and climate change. Brianna combines environment and climate change expertise with experience developing and implementing human rights policies, due diligence approaches and sustainability reporting.

Before Shift, Brianna spearheaded innovative sustainability initiatives at Sustainable Development Technology Canada and Export Development Canada (EDC). At EDC she led the development and implementation of exciting new portfolio approaches for climate change and human rights risk management, as well as aligning EDC’s corporate reporting with international reporting frameworks, such as the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and the UNGPs Reporting Framework.  She also led EDC’s international sustainability negotiations and engagements, including as co-Chair of the Equator Principles Climate Change Working Group.

Prior to joining EDC, Brianna worked for nine years as a diplomat with Canada’s foreign ministry, including four years at the United Nations General Assembly where she led environment and development negotiations, advocacy and outreach on behalf of the Government of Canada, including for the creation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Brianna has also advised international financial institutions including the World Bank Group, institutional investors, bilateral development agencies, and small- and medium-sized enterprises on the practical application of environment, climate change, human rights standards.

Brianna has an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from Queen’s University and a Master’s degree in Environmental Change & Management from the University of Oxford.

Ashleigh Owens /

Director | Financial Institutions Lead

She/Her New York City

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As Shift’s Director / Financial Institutions Lead, Ashleigh leads our work with financial institutions and supports other partners across industries, leveraging her breadth of experience to tackle cutting-edge issues and entrenched challenges on the road to implementation of the UN Guiding Principles.

Specializes in Financial Institutions | Valuing Respect

As Director / Financial Institutions Lead, Ashleigh engages directly with financial institutions, companies and investors as they embed respect for human rights into their operations and business relationships. She also leads on pieces of research under our Valuing Respect Project, which is focused on developing better ways to evaluate business respect for human rights. Ashleigh has a breadth of experience approaching the Guiding Principles from business, legal and academic perspectives and brings a holistic view to Guiding Principles implementation.

Ashleigh was previously Executive Director at Ernst & Young’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services. At EY Japan, she led a team of consultants supporting policy-making, educational program and governance design, stakeholder dialogue and due diligence strategies for multinational and domestic companies across a variety of industries.  As founder of the EY Human Rights Network, she led the enhancement of EY’s human rights capabilities across EY’s global network. In her role she was a frequent speaker and moderator of dialogues at multi-stakeholder fora and functioned as a connector between civil society, government and corporate actors with a common goal of empowering business to respect rights.

From 2012 to 2014 she conducted research at the United Nations University in the field of Sustainability Science, specializing in business and human rights. She prepared research for the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and spent time at the UN Global Compact New York and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Ashleigh later sat on the UN Global Compact’s Human Rights and Labour Working Group and drafted the Global Compact’s 2015 Guide on How to Develop a Human Rights Policy.

Ashleigh is a lawyer qualified in Australia and England & Wales and specialized in intellectual property law, labor law and public international law. She has advised governments and companies on state human rights obligations, companies on the nexus between bilateral investment treaties and human rights and fellow lawyers on integrating the Guiding Principles into legal advice. In 2007 she won the Intellectual Property Society of Australia & NZ prize.

Ashleigh has authored or contributed to a number of publications including: Business and Human Rights: Corporate Japan Rises to the Challenge (joint publication between EY Japan and Global Compact Network Japan), Corporate Social Responsibility Can Save Japan (Op-ed in Japan Times), Cumulative Human Rights Impacts (in UN Global Compact/ Maplecroft Business Dilemmas Forum) as well as several legal publications on intellectual property law in Australia and English translations of Japanese High Court judgments. She is also a member of the Advisory Board for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)’s Division for Prosperity.

Ashleigh has degrees in Law and Asian Studies from the University of Western Australia, with studies also conducted at the University of Vienna and Sophia University in Japan. She has a Masters of Science in Sustainability from the United Nations University and has undertaken the institution’s Leadership for Sustainability program. Ashleigh is an Australian national, and is fluent in Japanese.

Rachel Davis /

Vice President and Co-Founder

She/Her Sydney

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As the Vice President and Co-Founder of Shift, Rachel helps shape our strategy and oversees a range of our collaborations with companies, governments, investors, civil society and other partners. Rachel is also responsible for driving our work on standards advocacy and with sports associations.

Specializes in Standard Setters | Sports and Human Rights

Rachel is one of Shift’s co-founders and has led work at Shift over the last decade on standard-setting, human rights and sports, financial institutions, conflict and international law.

As Vice President, Rachel shapes our strategy and oversees a range of our collaborations with companies, governments, investors, civil society and other partners. Rachel leads Shift’s work to influence standard-setters of all kinds to integrate the UN Guiding Principles into the rules that govern business, including engaging with governments and the European Union on mandatory human rights due diligence.

Rachel also has unique experience advising and leading efforts to drive respect for human rights into the operations of global sports governing bodies. Rachel was the Chair of FIFA’s independent Human Rights Advisory Board while it operated, between 2017 and 2021. She has advised the International Olympic Committee on human rights since 2018, including co-authoring recommendations for the IOC on a comprehensive human rights strategy with former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein.

Rachel has more than a decade of experience in implementing the Guiding Principles with a wide range of organizations, including public and private financial institutions and companies from diverse business sectors and geographies, and she frequently leads and facilitates engagements with senior audiences around the world. She is the co-author of the leading study of the costs of company-community conflict in the extractive sector.

Prior to co-founding Shift, Rachel was a senior legal advisor from 2006-2011 to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on business and human rights, Harvard Professor John Ruggie. She played a pivotal role in the development of the Guiding Principles, advising on all aspects of the relationship between the Guiding Principles and national and international law.

Rachel is also a Senior Program Fellow with the Corporate Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School and has experience at the highest levels of the Australian legal system and internationally, having clerked at the High Court of Australia and at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. She has a particular interest in Indigenous peoples’ rights, having advised the Australian Federal Attorney-General’s Department on Indigenous affairs and acted as Ruggie’s liaison with the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues during his UN mandate.

Rachel has a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School and Bachelors degrees in Law and Politics from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, where she also lectured and published in law. She is a (non-practicing) lawyer qualified in New South Wales.

Federico Burlon /

Director

He/Him London

As Director at Shift, Federico engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

Specializes in Business Enterprises

As Director at Shift, Federico engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

Prior to joining Shift, Federico was Head of Delivery at Impactt. Federico managed a portfolio of clients, supported by a team of consultants. He led human rights assessment and remediation projects in the construction, energy, food and shipbuilding industries. This resulted in positive outcomes such as the return of passports and reimbursement of recruitment fees to workers and the strengthening of companies’ employment practices. Federico led Impactt’s engagement with the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy in Qatar as external monitor of worker welfare in the construction of venues for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. He also developed Impactt’s Diagnostics community of practice, delivering for clients as well as building internal capacity to execute human rights assessments around the world, with a focus on worker voice.

Prior to Impactt, Federico was a Sustainability Manager at Tesco plc. He contributed to the roll out of Tesco’s ethical trading programme to the goods-not-for-resale value chain. Federico engaged with hundreds of product and services suppliers and internal purchasing and sourcing teams to raise awareness of human rights issues and to prioritise and address the findings from third-party social audits. He also worked on climate change to develop a roadmap to achieve Tesco’s carbon reduction commitments related to direct and supply chain emissions.

In prior roles, Federico worked with a variety of human rights organisations in the United Kingdom and United States.

Federico holds a MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and a BA in Political Science and International Studies from Macalester College, with a focus on human rights law and international migration. He is a United World College Adriatic alumnus and is from Argentina.

Erika George /

Board Member

She/Her

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Erika George is Director of the Tanner Humanities Center and Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law at the University of Utah. She has conducted leading research and is a passionate advocate for women’s rights, children’s rights, gender equality and environmental justice. 

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.

Erika George is Director of the Tanner Humanities Center and Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law at the University of Utah. Prior to joining the University of Utah, Professor George served as a law clerk and litigation associate at prominent firms in both Illinois and New York. She also worked as a fellow and later consultant at Human Rights Watch, where she conducted investigations in South Africa on women’s rights, children’s rights, violence, the right to education and abuses related to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. She wrote a book-length report, Scared at School: Sexual Violence Against Girls in South African Schools, which received widespread media coverage in South Africa and internationally. She currently serves as special counsel to the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.

Her scholarship has appeared in the California Law Review, the Michigan Journal of International Law, the New York University Journal of International Law and Policy, and the annual proceedings of the American Society of International Law.

Professor George has served on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Department of State Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan and as a member of the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah. She is an Editor for the blog globaljusticeblog.com.

We recorded an interview with Professor George when she joined Shift’s Board in February of 2022. It is available here.

John Ruggie /

Founding Chair / In Memoriam

John Ruggie is the author of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

In Memory of John Ruggie

John served as the founding Chair of Shift from 2011 to 2021. He was the Berthold Beitz Research Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He also taught at the Berkeley and San Diego campuses of the University of California, and at Columbia University where he became Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs. From 1997-2001 John served as UN Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Planning in the cabinet of Kofi Annan; from 2002-2005 as Special Advisor to the Secretary-General for the Global Compact; and from 2005-2011 as Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Business and Human Rights.

A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, he received numerous awards from academic and professional societies for his contributions to social science, public policy and the development of international law. In addition to serving as Shift’s Board Chairman, John was also on the Board of Arabesque Asset Management Holding Company as well as Unilever’s Sustainability Advisory Council. His book, Just Business: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights, has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.

Caroline Rees /

President and Co-Founder

She/Her New York City

Linkedin-in

As Shift’s President, Caroline leads our strategic development and drives our thought leadership work on key challenges and opportunities in advancing corporate respect for business and human rights.

As the President and Co-Founder of Shift, Caroline leads our organizational strategy and development and drives our thought leadership work on key challenges and opportunities in advancing corporate respect for business and human rights. Caroline speaks extensively at events around the world and frequently facilitates dialogue and debate amongst companies, governments, investors and civil society. In recent years, Caroline has focused on improving corporate human rights reporting as a catalyst for better human rights risk management, and on improving the data and methods used in evaluating companies’ social performance as part of ESG (environmental, social and governance) analysis. She has written and spoken extensively on the relevance of business respect for human rights, and the UNGPs specifically, to movements that seek to advance sustainability, equality, ESG investing, stakeholder capitalism, and human and social capital.

Caroline previously spent 14 years with the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. From 2003 to 2006 she led the UK’s human rights negotiating team at the UN and she ran the negotiations to establish the mandate of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on business and human rights. The success of this initiative led to Professor John Ruggie’s appointment and from 2007-2011 Caroline was a lead advisor on his team and deeply involved in the drafting of the Guiding Principles.

From 2009 to 2011 Caroline was also the Director of the Governance and Accountability Program at the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School and she remains a Senior Program Fellow there. Caroline is a member of the Imperatives Board of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Board of the Capitals Coalition, the Unilever Sustainability Advisory Council, and the Steering Committee of the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures.

Caroline’s prior British foreign service career covered Iran, Slovakia, the UN Security Council in New York and the European Union in Brussels. Caroline has a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from Oxford University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Caroline is a British national and speaks English, French and German.