Shift Submission to Public Consultation on Italian National Action Plan

In September 2016 we submitted comments to the Italian government to support its development of a National Action Plan on business and human rights.

Below is the text Shift submitted to the Italian government as part of the public consultation. | Learn more about Shift’s engagement with regulatory and policy developments

Submission for the Public Consultation on the Italian National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights

Shift is pleased to submit these recommendations to the Italian Government as part of its public consultation on the revision of its National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights (“NAP”). We support the initiative of the Government to review and build upon its first NAP and further its commitment to implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (“UN Guiding Principles”). The revision of the NAP should encourage greater uptake of the UN Guiding Principles in Italy and facilitate stronger cooperation between companies, government institutions and their stakeholders.

As one of the first countries to develop a NAP on the UN Guiding Principles, the Italian Government now has the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of its approach to date. Owing to the fact that many goods and services found around the world are produced by Italian companies – which operate both within Italy and abroad – the revision of the NAP is also an important opportunity for the government to show critical leadership on business and human rights.

This submission responds to the draft published by the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Human Rights (CIDU) at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. It addresses three areas that we believe are particularly important in considering the revision of the NAP:

1- Advancing the State Duty to Protect, in Italy and Abroad
Suggestions on advancing business and human rights within the institutions of the Italian Government, both in Italy and abroad. 

2- Facilitating the Corporate Responsibility to Respect
Assisting and where appropriate requiring Italian companies to respect human rights throughout their operations, including through the use of formal reporting that helps to drive improved performance. 

3- Improving Access to Remedy
Further building capacity within the Italian Government in understanding the UN Guiding Principles and responding to cases involving business-related violations of human rights, both within Italy and through the impact of Italian business abroad. 

Further building capacity within the Italian Government in understanding the UN Guiding Principles and responding to cases involving business-related violations of human rights, both within Italy and through the impact of Italian business abroad. 

1. Advancing the State Duty to Protect /

The National Priorities set out in the draft NAP suggest an ambitious program to tackle several key areas that pose significant risk to human rights. We welcome the inclusion of issues such as dealing with irregular or grey work (ex. caporalato) in the agricultural sector within Italy, and bolstering human rights in Italy’s development cooperation.

In strengthening the NAP, there are several areas which could be explored at greater length to highlight the role and responsibilities of Italian companies in respecting human rights through their business operations and business relationships. One particular instance includes the “Legality Law” (or “Rating”) and its strength in addressing a company’s respect for human rights. At present, the “Rating” is assigned in the form of a certificate released by the Italian Antitrust Authority as a certification of adhering to various aspects of responsible business. Designed to evaluate business ethics, banks and other financial institutions in Italy may consider a company’s rating in granting access to finance. Yet at present, the rating process and indicators used to measure ethical standards of firms do not require companies to proactively seek to address or mitigate human rights risks in their supply chains, whether their operations are within Italy, our outside of the European Union. 

  • A government-sponsored certification scheme connected with responsible business conduct provides a natural opportunity for companies to demonstrate how they seek to respect human rights in line with the UN Guiding Principles. In order to strengthen the consideration of respect for human rights as part of the rating’s evaluation of responsible business conduct, we encourage the Italian Government to explore how to link “human rights due diligence” to the criteria.

A growing number of national Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) are bringing a human rights lens to bear on their existing environmental and social due diligence, including by adopting new policies and human rights due diligence procedures informed by the expectations of the UN Guiding Principles. Given this context, we are pleased to see that the NAP references both SACE, the Italian ECA, and SIMEST, the Italian DFI. Drawing on our work with the IFC, as well as with various countries’ ECAs (such as those of Norway and Canada) and DFIs (such as those in the Netherlands, Germany and France), we see a growing number of financial institutions strengthening their existing environmental and social due diligence approaches to incorporate human rights due diligence more directly. This is first and foremost about preventing risk to people, but it can also help prevent risk to the investments at issue.

  • A general focus on conducting social and environmental impact assessments, as currently set out in the NAP, is likely to be insufficient to fully explore human rights risks connected to individual clients or transactions. We encourage the Italian Government to commit to reviewing the existing approaches of SACE and SIMEST through the lens of human rights due diligence and identifying how to proactively incorporate human rights due diligence into their approaches. This will be essential as part of Italy’s implementation of the revised OECD “Common Approaches” for all OECD member states’ ECAs.
  • We also urge the government to build the capacity of the Italian Trade Agency (ICE) to deal with business and human rights and understand the breadth of the UN Guiding Principles in operationalizing trade support and promotion, following the lead of other countries such as the UK.

Shift is pleased that the Italian NAP includes critical reference to both state owned enterprises (SOEs) and public procurement. Just as businesses are expected under the UN Guiding Principles to include their supply chains in their human rights due diligence processes, so too should the government, including its (public) enterprises. A tangible step would be to require suppliers to demonstrate that they have adequate human rights policies in place as well as the necessary processes to identify and address the most severe risks to people that their operations may pose. Given the large number of suppliers to the Italian government and its SOEs, those suppliers whose sectors, countries of operation, products or services are known to carry particularly significant risks to human rights could be prioritized for scrutiny. This would align with the approach being taken by the world’s biggest procurer of goods and services, the US Federal Government, through the Federal Acquisition Regulation requiring due diligence in relation to the risks of slavery and trafficking in the supply chain.

Shift welcomes the progress in transposing the 2014 EU Procurement Directives that allows contracting authorities to take into account social considerations. At the same time, we believe that more is needed to ensure that human rights are appropriately considered when purchasing goods, works and services. As indicated in the NAP, the Italian Anti-Corruption Authority (ANAC) has a leading role here. While anti-corruption is crucial to responsible business conduct, it is also closely associated with heightened human rights risks.

  • We recommend that the Italian Government take advantage of the transposition process to commit to develop clear guidance for relevant authorities on how to integrate consideration of human rights into the bidding process for public sector contracts, beyond anti-corruption risks alone, as well as what the appropriate consequences should be where human rights are not respected in practice by business suppliers.
  • In supporting the uptake of the social and environmental amendments to the Procurement Directive, Shift recommends that the Italian government provide support to public authorities on procurement within the context of business and human rights. Other countries have developed, or are in the process of developing, guidance and e-learning tools on this topic which could be built on.

With Italy’s long industrial and commercial history in certain sectors, human rights risks may be particularly relevant in some of those sectors such as agriculture and textiles. In terms of the former, addressing the caporalato is a welcome initiative. Undeclared, grey or seasonal work which is not supported by decent work measures can result in extreme risks to people and also in material risks to enterprises themselves. In relation to the textiles sector, there are known human rights risks in the textile supply chain, including for luxury brands, within Italy. In addition, a high concentration of firms within – or associated with – the textile sector in Italy increasingly source from countries outside of the European Union, which can pose different and additional human rights risks. Shift is aware that a number of leading Italian companies associated with the textile sector would welcome greater guidance and support on how to meet their responsibility to respect human rights.

  • Shift recommends that the Italian government, supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, provide sector-based support to businesses that pose the highest risks to human rights (for example in agriculture and textiles), looking both at domestic risks as well as risks in business relationships/supply chains abroad.

Regarding development cooperation, the recently reformed Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), linked to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, provides an excellent opportunity to align Italy’s development agenda – including its commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals – with decent work in global supply chains. Further, Italy committed to supporting a better application of labour, social and environmental standards in global supply chains at the the G7 in Elmau, Germany in 2015. These commitments also reflect the EU Council Conclusions on Responsible Global Value Chains, agreed upon by all EU Member States in May 2016. Shift welcomes the suggestion that this might be a priority area of work.

  • We urge the Italian government to extend the expectation of human rights due diligence to AICS’ technical areas of economic development (i.e. private sector development and trade), human development, rural development and environment/natural resources. The current horizontal focus on human rights with respect to gender and youth is notable, however business and human rights extends far beyond these areas. The various technical areas/work steams could be strengthened to include reference to business and human rights and decent work. These measures could also link to sectoral initiatives as suggested above (such as in agriculture and textiles).

2. Facilitating the Corporate Responsibility to Respect, in Italy and Abroad /

States have a range of tools at their disposal to encourage, incentivize and require companies to respect human rights. This includes, as Guiding Principle 3(d) makes clear, the role of the state to: “Encourage, and where appropriate require, business enterprises to communicate how they address their human rights impacts.” There have been several significant developments on human rights reporting in Europe and the United States, including the EU Directive on Non-Financial Information Disclosure 2016, the UK Companies Act 2006 and the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015. In the US, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act’s provisions with regard to conflict minerals due diligence, and the State Department’s Myanmar Reporting Requirements have all contributed to heightened expectations of companies.

Disclosure requirements can help drive accountability and improved performance: they focus senior management minds on what the company is (or is not) doing, and they provide the information necessary for better engagement by the company with stakeholders on how it is managing its human rights impacts. But they only do so if the expectations for disclosure are meaningful. To date, human rights reporting has been by far the weakest area of company reporting. This is a key reason why Shift, together with our project partner the international accountancy firm Mazars, led the development of the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework.

The Reporting Framework is the first comprehensive guidance for companies to report on how they respect human rights in line with the UN Guiding Principles. As Professor John Ruggie stated at its launch, “The business community very strongly endorsed the UN Guiding Principles when they came out, but until today they haven’t had the actual reporting tool that enables them to know and show that they respect human rights.”

The Reporting Framework is designed to help all companies, regardless of size, sector or operating context, to see how far they have progressed in implementing their responsibility to respect human rights and how to communicate that publicly. The Framework is organized according to a phased approach that incentivizes companies to improve over time. It also includes linkages to other broader reporting frameworks, including those of the Global Reporting Initiative, the International Integrated Reporting Council and UN Global Compact, and issue and industry-specific initiatives to show how responding to their requirements can help answer questions in the Framework.

Since its launch, the Reporting Framework has received strong support from a broad range of stakeholders including businesses, civil society and other EU Member States. A current summary can be found on the website. Importantly, the UNGP Reporting Framework has the support of an investor coalition representing USD $4.8 trillion in assets under management worldwide, and a number of governments have recommended (Sweden, Norway, UK) or are considering recommending the Reporting Framework in their NAPs. The UN Working Group on business and human rights supported the development of the Reporting Framework.

The translation of the UNGP Reporting Framework has been made possible by a number of organizations and governments. Support has been received for translations into French, Spanish and Chinese. Funding from the German government has allowed for its translation into German and a Polish translation has been facilitated by the Polish Institute for Human Rights and Business (PIHRB). Shift is actively exploring translation opportunities beyond these languages, subject to funding.

  • We urge the Italian Government to consider the particular relevance of the UNGP Reporting Framework in providing guidance to companies with regard to the human rights requirements of the EU NFI directive and the provisions of the “Legality Law/Rating.” We also invite the Government to consider recommending the use of the Reporting Framework to Italian companies more broadly as a tool to help them meet their responsibility to respect human rights under the UN Guiding Principles.

3. Improving Access to Remedy /

Guiding Principle 25 affirms the need for effective state-based remedy, both judicial and non-judicial, as the foundation of a wider system of remedy for business-related human rights harms. Guiding Principle 26 identifies common legal and practical barriers to accessing judicial remedy for such harms.

Guiding Principle 26 could only address barriers to judicial remedy in very broad terms because their precise nature, and the most appropriate solutions to them, must necessarily be determined at the national level. Doing so requires detailed analysis and review of the existing situation, taking into account broader access to justice considerations that go well beyond the business and human rights sphere, and will necessarily involve difficult judgments. Yet it is essential to meeting the duty to protect in practice. It is therefore very concerning that no existing NAP fully engages with this principle. The recent EU Council Conclusions on Business and Human Rights have reaffirmed this notion, and called upon EU Member States to proactively address the issue of remedies for victims of business-related human rights abuses within their National Action Plans.

Further, in March 2016, the Council of Europe (CoE) adopted  recommendations for CoE Member States on human rights and business (Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)3 on human rights and business). The reccomendations provide specific guidance to assist CoE Member States, of which Italy is an actice member, to prevent and remedy human rights violations by business enterprises. The reccomendations illustrate a recommittment to meaningful action on access to remedy, specifically access to judicial remedy. In addition, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Accountability and Remedy Project has developed concrete guidance for states on how to advance implementation of the UN Guiding Principles’ provisions on state-based remedy.

In terms of non-judicial state-based remedy, it is important that negative findings by such mechanisms are linked to meaningful consequences for the businesses involved. A recent example can be found in the revised Canadian Extractive Sector CSR Policy, which formally links poor corporate performance and refusal to cooperate in various dialogue processes, including those of the Canadian National Contact Point (NCP), to limitations on export credit and other official trade promotion support.

  • We urge the Italian government to specify concrete steps with regard to reviewing and addressing any gaps in access to state-based remedy, including judicial remedy. We also encourage the Government to consider appropriate consequences for companies that refuse to engage with the Italian National Contact Point or are subject to negative findings and do not take the necessary steps to address the concerns. For example, such instances should inform decision-making by SACE and SIMEST.

In closing, we appreciate the opportunity to make this submission and would be pleased to provide any further information that may be of use.

Tagged

Dr. Christine Chow /

Board Member

She/Her

Linkedin-in
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

Linkedin-in

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

Linkedin-in

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

Linkedin-in

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

Linkedin-in

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

Linkedin-in

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

Linkedin-in X-twitter

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.