Columbia University fellowship opportunity with the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre Corporate Legal Accountability Programme

**This opportunity is specific to the Columbia Human Rights Fellowship program. External applicants will not be considered**

About the opportunity

The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre team welcomes an enthusiastic, reliable lawyer committed to human rights to serve our global stakeholders and creatively help to expand the enthusiastic, reliable and well-organise work of its Corporate Legal Accountability (CLA) Programme for one year. The CLA operates the only global information hub on corporate legal accountability where we track strategic lawsuits against companies over human rights abuses, and monitor legislative development to help hold companies accountable. We do so to equip lawyers and legal advocates with the tools they need to support communities’ access legal remedy.

The fellow will carry out  research, develop advocacy tools, and generate influencing strategies on specific themes related to corporate legal accountability and in line with the priorities of the Resource Centre, such as mandatory human rights due diligence and technology and human rights among others.

The fellow will more specifically be involved in the following projects:

• Just transition litigation, a subset of climate change litigation, whereby Indigenous Peoples, other frontline communities, or affected workers, file lawsuits based on human rights arguments to assess the “distribution of benefits and burdens” of the transition away from fossil fuels and towards net-zero emissions. The fellow will have the opportunity to support the development of our Just Transition Litigation portfolio of work (see our newly launched tracking tool here and the 2024 analysis here) to the next level by for instance contributing to the strategic vision of this project, researching new cases to add to the tracking tool, help with the yearly analysis, and liaise with partners etc.
• UN legally binding instrument (LBI) to regulate transnational corporations and other companies with respect to human rights**.** The fellow will support our work relaying civil society’s message so key points are including in the LBI through the organisation of webinars; liaise with experts and partners for our “Debate the treaty” blog series; and monitor the session of the intergovernmental working group and contribute to our Daily Updates that summarise the key takeaways of the session.
• Strategic Litigation Network that that gathers lawyers, NGOs, human rights defenders (HRDs) and other experts in a safe to share strategies, tools and good practices to hold companies accountable over human rights abuses, and address obstacles they face to protect stakeholders impacted by corporate misconduct.
• Regular programme outputs: The fellow will also draft and develop the CLA Programme publications, including the Quarterly Update – our quarterly newsletter highlighting a specific timely topic as well as key developments in corporate legal accountability; new and existing lawsuit profiles in our lawsuit database.

The fellow will also have the ability to liaise with lawyers, civil society and other key stakeholders working on corporate legal accountability globally. You will gain experience using internet-based publication tools like Mailchimp and the content management system Wagtail.

As a fellow, you will have the opportunity to gain exposure and practical experience in an international NGO and be an integral member of a diverse and international team. Your experience will enable you to strengthen your legal research and analytical skills to empower lawyers and communities fighting for greater accountability of businesses involved in human rights abuses. You will also learn from colleagues and widen your knowledge of the business and human rights field. Throughout the fellowship you will have the opportunity to have your research published on the site and access our data.

This is a remote position. As we are a global organisation, most of our work is done with colleagues from around the world. However, if you are already based in London or in New York, there might be the opportunity to come to the office. Your direct supervisor is based in France and the Director of International Programmes overseeing the CLA work is based in South Africa.

Eligibility criteria

• Currently enrolled in or recently graduated from a university offering a fellowship programme
• Have a legal degree (LLB/LLM/JD or similar), are currently studying law or have a legal background
• Demonstrated academic or professional experience carrying out international and/or multi-jurisdictional legal research, analysing and summarising information
• Interest in and commitment to promoting human rights, especially business and human rights
• Excellent English language skills (reading/writing/speaking). Fluency in another languages such as French, Spanish, Arabic or Russian is a plus
• Ability to work independently and use own initiative

About us

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre is a global non-profit organisation that works with communities, civil society, companies and governments to drive human rights at the heart of business and eliminate abuse. The Resource Centre tracks the human rights policies and practices of over 10,000 companies worldwide to push for better human rights protections. Our website is a global business and human rights knowledge hub, delivering daily news in ten languages, with over 150,000 active users per month. Our weekly e-newsletter has over 16,000 subscribers globally, including advocates, business-people, governments, investors and the UN.

The Resource Centre’s Corporate Legal Accountability (CLA) Programme aims to strengthen the legal accountability of business actors so that rightsholders can exercise their rights and access justice when abuses occur. We view strategic litigation as a critical tool in ending this impunity and aim to equip lawyers, legal practitioners and affected people pursuing strategic litigation around the world with networks, analysis and information to help build stronger cases against companies implicated in human rights abuses, support the development of novel legal strategies, establish effective legal precedent and improve access to legal remedy.

In practice, this is reflected through the Programme’s general work of:

• Informing: Daily monitoring of international legal and legislative developments in the field of business and human rights, including the United Nations’ Binding Treaty, on our website. Given the Resource Centre’s current thematic priorities, we track the latest legal news in the areas of natural resources and the just transition, tech and human rights and labour rights.
• Reflecting and Strategising: Highlighting and analysing timely topics and sharing key legal developments through our CLA Quarterly Update. These updates highlight critical topics in the corporate legal accountability field, provide objective and concise information on key legal developments, include new and updated profiles of lawsuits against companies over alleged human rights abuses and offer key resources for grassroots and community practitioners.
• Monitoring: Adding cases of strategic litigation to our lawsuit profiles database, which already contains over 210 cases brought against companies over allegations of human rights abuses. The Database, which is the only substantial repository of corporate legal accountability cases and judgements that is freely accessible, provides important insight into trends and challenges in respect of strategic human rights litigation against corporations, and aims to aid legal practitioners in developing strategies to counter corporate abuse in local and regional contexts.
• Connecting: Through our Strategic Litigation Network in Latin America, Lawyers Directory and convenings, we connect communities, legal practitioners and other experts from around the globe to foster exchange, cooperation, and peer-to peer learning on key CLA issues.

Keywords

Human RightsLegalCorporate AccountabilityBusinessResearchAdvocacyTechnologyJust TransitionLitigationCivil SocietyInternational LawStrategic LitigationHuman Rights Defenders