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
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, 15%; mid-term take home
exercise, 35%; and team-based project work, 50%.
ABSTRACT
OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: Imagine
where you will be 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 an electronics manufacturer or a high-end
jeweler that source 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? Alternatively, 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 and other
critical human rights; you may work for a biotechnology company that has
developed a life-saving cancer drug but 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
FIFA as well as threats of boycotts if you do in fact end the partnership. What should you
do? What can you do? What is the sustainable
business case for the various options?
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 and
business partners do not vilate 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 General Mills, Chevron,
Facebook, Levi’s, Microsoft, Uber, Accountability Counsel, and BSR.
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:
- Provide students
with an overview of the international human rights framework and global
business and human rights standards and guidelines
- Give students a
full understanding of the ways in which companies can impact human rights
negatively and positively, and the approaches being used across industries
to manage those impacts
- Enable students
to critically assess the degree to which companies are and should be
responsible for human rights impacts, and where violations occur the
nature of the remedies that companies can and should provide depending on
the particular situation surrounding the human rights impact
- Give students
the knowledge, skills, and tools to effectively manage corporate human
rights issues as human rights managers or external consultants, and to
successfully advocate for rightsholders as part of the growing number of
civil society organizations focused on human rights.
- Practice the
communication and persuasion skills necessary to successfully address
emerging issues within a complex multinational corporation.
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) F
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
