Intensive Course on Business and Human Rights – Faculty Profile

Justine Nolan

Justine Nolan is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean at University of New South Wales (UNSW) Law as well as a Visiting Scholar at New York University (NYU) Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. She has published widely on business and human rights and advises companies, NGOs and governments on these issues. Prior to joining UNSW in 2004, she was the Director of Business and Human Rights at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First) in the US. She is an editor of the Australian Journal of Human Rights and on the Editorial Board of the Business and Human Rights Journal. Her upcoming book is called Addressing Modern Slavery and will be released later this year.

Lara Jesani

Lara Jesani has been practicing law in Indian courts for the last 10 years and is currently an independent legal practitioner with her primary practice based out of Bombay High Court and National Green Tribunal. She holds a masters in political science with a specialisation in Indian politics and a masters in law (LLM) with a specialisation in criminal law. She was formerly a Litigation Partner in M Mulla Associates until September 2017, and since practicing independently based out of Mumbai. She takes up cases of human rights violations, in particular constitutional, environmental, development and anticorruption matters, death penalty / criminal cases and in defence of HRDs. She is also engaged in public policy and advocacy work for democratic rights and civil liberties issues, and in human rights and legal education. She is an Ad-Hoc Committee member of the Maharashtra unit of People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) and a National Working Committee member of People’s Commission for Shrinking Democratic Spaces (PCSDS) and is a part of Human Rights Defenders Alert (HRDA). She also continues to work with several collective efforts/ groups and collaborate with CSOs and intersectional feminist collectives, on issue basis.

Leïla Choukroune

Leïla Choukroune is Professor of International Law and Director of the University of Portsmouth Thematic Area in Democratic Citizenship. She is regularly solicited as an independent expert on international economic law and business and human rights issues. She has been independent adviser to the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and a Member of the French National Books Commission (CNL). Her research focuses on the interactions between international trade and investment law, human rights, development studies, jurisprudence and social theory.

Professor Leïla Choukroune has published numerous scientific articles, book chapters and Journals special issues in English, French, Spanish or Chinese and authored more than 10 books, including recently, Judging the State in International Trade and Investment Law (2016), and Exploring Indian Modernities (2018). She is the Editor of the Springer book series International Law and the Global South; and the Routledge book series in Human Rights, Citizenship and the Law. She is currently working on the creation of a new Journal in International Law and Development with a Global South orientation. She is Officer of “l’Ordre du mérité” (Knight of the Order of Merit -conferred by the French government).

Before joining the University of Portsmouth, she was Director of the Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH), New Delhi (India); Associate Professor at the Law Faculty of Maastricht University (Netherlands); Deputy Director of the Institute for Globalization and International Regulation (IGIR); and, Director of the Advanced Master in International Economic Law (Maastricht University). Professor Leïla Choukroune holds a Doctorate in International Law (suma cum laude – highest honour) from the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne and is a qualified lawyer to the Paris Bar.

Manoj Kumar Sinha

Manoj Kumar Sinha is currently working as Director of the Indian Law Institute. He did his Doctorate in International Law from Jawaharlal Nehru University, LL.M. from the University of Nottingham and LL.B from University of Delhi. In 1998 he attended the 29th session of the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. His areas of specializations are Human Rights, Constitutional Law, Business and Human Rights. International Humanitarian and Refugee Law, International Criminal Law, International Law and International Institutions. He has published extensively in the field of international law, international relations, constitutional law, international human rights, humanitarian and refugee laws, in reputed National and International Law journals. He is serving as the member of editorial boards of various reputed national and international journals. He has been regularly delivering lectures at various institutions in India and abroad.

Namit Agarwal

Namit Agarwal works as Lead Specialist – Private Sector Engagement at Oxfam India. He leads Oxfam India’s engagement with private sector on issues of Business & Human Rights, responsible supply chains and responsible finance. He has led the creation of India Responsible Business Forum, India Responsible Business Index, Sustainable Responsible Investments Working Group and Fair Finance India coalition. He is a member of the National Human Rights Commission core group on Business, Environment and Human Rights. He is also the co-convener of Human Rights and Business Network India, Fair Finance India Coalition and Sustainable and Responsible Investing Working Group. Namit has a decade of experience working on business responsibility related issues in India working with organisations such as CARE, Samhita and EDI. He is an MBA (Marketing) from ICFAI University and Bachelor of Commerce from Calcutta University.

He recent publications include – Walking the Talk: Assessing companies’ progress from SDG rhetoric to action (Oxfam Discussion paper – co-author); Measuring Business Responsibility Disclosures of Indian Companies: A Data-Driven Approach to Influence Action (Cambridge Business and Human Rights Journal – author); Raising the Bar: Rethinking the role of business in the Sustainable Development Goals (Oxfam Discussion paper – co-author)

Surya Deva

Surya Deva is an Associate Professor at the School of Law of City University of Hong Kong, and a member of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights. Prof Deva’s primary research interests lie in Business and Human Rights, India-China Constitutional Law, and Sustainable Development. He has published extensively in these areas, and has advised the UN and EU bodies, states, multinational corporations and civil society organisations on matters related to business and human rights. He is one of the founding Editors-in-Chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal, and sits on the Editorial/Advisory Board of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, the Vienna Journal on International Constitutional Law and the Australian Journal of Human Rights. Prof Deva is an elected Member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Constitutional Law. His books include – Building a Treaty on Business and Human Rights: Context and Contours (co-editor with David Bilchitz) (Cambridge, 2017); Socio-Economic Rights in Emerging Free Markets: Comparative Insights from India and China (editor) (Routledge, 2015); Human Rights Obligations of Business: Beyond the Corporate Responsibility to Respect? (co-editor with David Bilchitz) (Cambridge, 2013); Regulating Corporate Human Rights Violations: Humanizing Business (Routledge, 2012).

Tara Van Ho

Tara Van Ho is a lecturer and the educational director of the post-graduate programmes in human rights at the University of Essex’s School of Law and Human Rights Centre (UK). She is a Vice President of the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association (‘BR2R’) and the Conference Chair for the organization’s 2019 annual workshop, which will be held in Essex in September.

A core member of the Essex Business and Human Rights Project, she advises states, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and occasionally businesses on issues of business, investment and human rights. Her primary research interest is on the impact of businesses and investment law on situations of armed conflict and transitional justice.

Her most recent publications include – Investor Obligations in Occupied Territories: A report on the Norwegian Government Pension Fund –Global; Assessing the Duty of Care for Social Auditors, European Review of Private Law, vol. 27(2); The Fukushima diaspora: assessing the state-based non-judicial remedies, in Civil and Political Rights in Japan: A Tribute to Sir Nigel Rodley (Saul Takahashi, ed.); The Duty to Prosecute and the Role of Victims’ Rights, in Beyond the Binary: Securing Peace and Promoting Justice after Conflict (Nelson Camilo Sanchez and Rodrigo Uprimny, eds.); She also did the drafting of a statement by eminent jurists on legal obligations when supporting reconstruction in Syria (released in September 2018).

Usha Ramanathan

Usha Ramanathan works on the jurisprudence of law, poverty and rights. She writes and speaks on issues that include the nature of law, Bhopal Gas Disaster, mass displacement, eminent domain, civil liberties including the death penalty, beggary, criminal law, custodial institutions, the environment, judicial process. She has been tracking, and engaging with, the Unique Identification (UID) project and has written, and debated extensively, on the subject. She worked closely with the petitioners and their lawyers when the UID project was taken to court. She has continued to work intensively on technology, data, identity and rights. Her work draws heavily upon non-governmental experience in its encounters with the state, a 6 years long stint with a law journal (Supreme Court Cases) as reporter from the Supreme Court, and engaging with matters of public policy. She is a regular lecturer at various universities, and is often called upon by the National Judicial Academy in Bhopal and the Delhi Judicial Academy to address judges on various issues of law and poverty, and on technology and the law. She was a member of the Expert Group on Privacy set up in the Planning Commission of India which gave in its report in October 2012. She was a member of a committee (2013-14) set up in the Department of Biotechnology to review the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012. She was a member of the Committee set up by the Prime Minister’s Office (2013-14) to study the socio-economic status of tribal communities which gave its report to the government in 2014. She has been on a series of committees on revising the vagrancy law.