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Multi-stakeholder standard-setting organizations, or multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs), are part of a wider political push to introduce multi-stakeholderism as a legitimate component in global governance. However, they are not sufficiently democratic or accountable to external constituencies to warrant their status or standing as global governance tools. Understanding the different types of MSIs: standard-setting, policy-setting and project-delivery  There are actually two distinct…

La Clínica insta a expertos de la ONU a que evalúen violaciones de derechos humanos en Bolivia (La versión en español está abajo). (August 19, 2020) —United Nations (U.N.) Special Rapporteurs must urgently review the human rights situation in Bolivia, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic said in a submission to the U.N. Special Procedure system today. Widespread rights…

On July 30, we hosted a webinar, “Beyond Business-as-Usual: Lessons from workers, communities and the failed experiment of multi-stakeholder initiatives,” with MSI Integrity. The event drew from MSI Integrity’s recent report examining international standard-setting multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs). The discussion was live-illustrated by Sita Magnuson, Experience Designer & Educator at dpict. Krizna Gomez, Director of Programs and lead facilitator at JustLabs, moderated. We were lucky enough to…

Join the Andean Information Network (AIN), the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, the University Network for Human Rights and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) for an upcoming webinar. On November 12, 2019, Jeanine Áñez became Bolivia’s interim president with the…

As a 13-year-old girl, I witnessed my beloved city of Hiroshima blinded by a flash of light, flattened by the hurricane-like blast, burned in the heat of 4,000 degrees Celsius, and contaminated by the radiation of one atomic bomb. I was rescued from a collapsed building, where most of my classmates were unable to escape. They were burned to death…

On August 3, 2020, 143 families of victims of police violence and over 360 civil society organizations endorsed a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding the implementation of the recent Human Rights Council Resolution (A/HRC/43/L.50) adopted on June 19, 2020. This resolution followed an Urgent Debate “on current racially inspired human rights violations, systemic racism, police brutality and violence…

(August 3, 2020, Miami) – Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated a trial court judgment that had been entered in favor of Bolivia’s former president, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, and former defense minister, José Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, for the massacre of unarmed Indigenous people in 2003. A jury found the former officials liable under the Torture Victims Protection…

Ten years ago tonight, I watched my laptop intently as the minutes, then seconds, ticked closer to midnight. A countdown clock on the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) website marked the time until the Convention on Cluster Munitions entered into force. I held my breath as the clock read … 3-2-1 and cheered when it finally reached 0. At the stroke…

Between 2014 and 2019, Dutch businesses in garments and textile, banking, forestry, gold, food products, insurance, pension funds, metals, floriculture, and natural stones all entered into government-induced agreements to encourage responsible business practice. Over five years, eleven such agreements were completed. These multi-stakeholder, voluntary, sector level Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) agreements have been cornerstones of the Dutch government’s method to …

As part of our collaboration with MSI Integrity in the #RethinkingMSIs series, we’re hosting a discussion with some all-star panelists on Thursday, July 30 at 10 am ET to talk about building better tools to center workers and support human rights. The event will draw insights from MSI Integrity’s recent report examining international standard-setting multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs). The discussion will be…