COURSE
NUMBER: MBA292T.3
COURSE
TITLE: Managing Human Rights in Business
UNITS
OF CREDIT: 2
INSTRUCTOR:
Faris Natour
and Roger McElrath
E-MAIL
ADDRESS: rogmac57@berkeley.edu, farisnatour@berkeley.edu
PREREQUISITE(S):
There
are no prerequisites for this course.
CLASS
FORMAT: The class format is a combination of lectures from the
professors and guest speakers (30%), interactive discussion (50%), and case
analysis in small working groups (20%).
REQUIRED
READINGS: There is no textbook for this class, and the required reading
is relatively light and focused on a few key documents (for example, the UN
Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights; the UN Declaration on Human
Rights), current events, corporate policies, and a variety of reports from
industry associations and non-governmental organizations.
BASIS
FOR FINAL GRADE: The breakdown for the final grade is as
follows: class participation, 20%; mid-term take home exercise, 30%; and team-based
project work, 50%.
ABSTRACT
OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: Imagine
where you will be two years after you graduate from Berkeley Haas. You may run a start-up clothing label sourcing
garments from factories in Bangladesh or be part of the procurement team for a
high-end jeweler that sources minerals from Africa. How do you ensure that the clothes are made and
the minerals extracted under ethical working conditions and by companies that
are legal entities? Or, you may work for
a social media platform and when a major customer offers to buy user data you have
to determine the implications for your user’s privacy; you may be marketing a
life-saving cancer drug developed by a biotech company for which the recoupment
of the R&D costs place the price of the drug out of reach for many who
urgently need it; you may be the marketing manager of a major brand facing
calls to end a promotional partnership with the NRA as well as threats of
boycotts if you do in fact end the partnership. What should
you do? What can you do?
Today, business leaders face these
and other human rights dilemmas on a daily basis. Through cases, interactive exercises, class debates,
and guest lectures from experts, we will put you in the shoes of a fast-growing
community of business managers whose job it is to make sure that their
companies do not abuse human rights.
Applying over 20 years of consulting experience, we will provide you
with the knowledge, skills, and tools to identify and address a company’s human
rights risks and to leverage the power of business to advance respect for human
rights around the world. Through
guest lectures and a visit to San Francisco based sustainability consultancy BSR, students will have the opportunity to
engage first hand with business leaders, consultants, and human rights
advocates dealing with these issues in real life situations. In past
courses, guest lectures have included leaders from Annie’s, Chevron, Facebook,
Levi’s, Microsoft, Twitter
This course, one of the first of its kind offered at a
business school, will prepare students for this growing field of practice. It is designed to meet the following learning
objectives:
BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH:
Faris Natour
leads the Human Rights and Business Initiative at the Center for Responsible
Business at Berkeley Haas. As co-founder of Article One (www.articleoneadvisors.com) Faris advises multinational companies on human rights
strategy and management. Previously, Faris held
various leadership positions at BSR (www.bsr.org),
a global business network and sustainability consultancy. He led BSR’s global
human rights practice from 2011-2015. Faris received law degrees from George Washington
University Law School and Universitaet Regensburg,
Germany.
Roger McElrath has extensive
professional experience delivering impactful consulting and research services
to companies and other organizations on critical social, community, and
environmental issues. His work at BSR in the area of human rights has included
a leadership role in developing and implementing methodologies for calculating
living wages in multiple countries, assisting in the development of a human
rights assessment tools for the extractives and agricultural industries, conducting
field-based human rights risk assessments, and providing detailed advice to
companies on the content and implementation of supply chain codes of conduct. Roger
holds a Master’s degree from the George Washington University in International
Affairs