Corporations as Good Citizens: Can respect for human rights and the environment be good business?
Wednesday April 20, 2022 | 12.00 – 13.30 EDT
Please join Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights (CLAIHR) for a panel on Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) and other corporate responsibility initiatives. Is business that respects for human rights and the environment achievable within the framework of our current system of corporate economic organization? Or are the two fundamentally compatible? The discussion will be moderated by CLAIHR Board member Andrew Cleland, and featured guests will be Joel Bakan, Anita Dorett, Shin Imai, and Mónica Ospina.
This program is eligible for up to 1.5 substantive hours of Continuing Professional Development with the Law Society of Ontario.
To join the panel, please register in advance.
About Joel:
Joel Bakan is an author, filmmaker and a professor of law at the University of British Columbia. A former Rhodes Scholar and law clerk to Chief Justice Brian Dickson of the Supreme Court of Canada, Bakan has law degrees from Oxford, Dalhousie, and Harvard.
His critically acclaimed book, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (2004), electrified readers around the world (it was published in over 20 languages), and became a bestseller in several countries. Bakan wrote and co-created (with Mark Achbar) a feature documentary film, The Corporation, based on the book’s ideas and directed by Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. The film won numerous awards, including best foreign documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, and was a critical and box office success.
The New Corporation, a sequel to that film, is based on Bakan’s book of the same name and directed by Bakan and Jennifer Abbott.
About Anita:
Anita Dorett is Director for the Investor Alliance for Human Rights. She mobilizes investor leverage to engage corporations on human rights due diligence based on the UN Guiding Principles for Human Rights and other international human rights standards and laws across multiple sectors.
Anita has a Master’s in Law from Columbia University, New York focused on Business and Human Rights. Her studies included international human rights law, extractive industries and sustainable development, human rights and development and international environmental law.
Anita brings with her 25 years of experience as a corporate attorney primarily in the technology and telecommunications industry. Prior to joining ICCR, Anita was an Associate General Counsel at IBM focused on global regulatory compliance including anti-bribery and corruption work and has worked in global roles at Dell Computers and British Telecommunications. She has worked internationally including in South East Asia.
About Shin:
Shin Imai is currently a professor emeritus at Osgoode Hall Law School. He has worked and published extensively in the areas of Indigenous rights, immigration law, clinical legal education and conflicts between Indigenous communities and Canadian mining companies.
Prior to his appointment to the law school, he worked at Keewaytinok Native Legal Services in Moosonee, started his own practice with a focus on immigration and human rights law and developed Alternative Dispute Resolution programs and justice projects in Indigenous communities at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.
Professor Imai serves as a director of the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project (justice-project.org). a volunteer legal clinic that cultivates expertise in supporting Indigenous communities in the Americas and communities in Africa. He holds a BA from Yale, an LLB from the University of Toronto and an LLM from Osgoode Hall Law School.
About Mónica:
Mónica Ospina is a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability expert with recognized experience in the design and implementation of CSR strategies that support operational productivity while building trusting relationships with communities impacted by mineral exploration and mining operations.
As an author, Mónica created the Local Community Procurement Program (LCPP), a sustainable supply chain model, awarded by the IFC-World Bank in 2012. She has also contributed to the IFC-World Bank’s Guide for the Early Stakeholder Engagement (published in 2015) and participated in discussion groups for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the RIO + 20 World Convention on Sustainable Development in 2012. In 2020, she was awarded as Distinguished Lecturer by CIM (Canadian Institute of Mining).
Mónica holds a B.A. in Business Administration from Universidad del Rosario, Colombia, Master’s Degree in Diplomatic Studies from the University of Westminster, UK, and has completed postgraduate programs in Sustainability Management from Harvard University and in International Business Strategy, from the London School of Economics.
