Senior Researcher and Director of the Business and Human Rights Program Joanne Bauer published an article in the Business and Human Rights Journal in August 2017 discussing her methods for deepening students knowledge and experience in business and human rights through a year-long multi-disciplinary clinic that prepares them for the complex challenges of the field.
The article, "Equipping Professionals for the Next Challenges: The Design and Results of a Multidisciplinary Business and Human Rights Clinic," examines the Business and Human Rights Clinic, which she established in 2015 at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). The course combines seminars, guest lectures, skills training, group work, field visits, and self-reflective exercise designed to "provide students with cutting-edge skills with strong career potential." It is designed to simulate a workplace with students from many different fields and disciplines participating. In its first two years, the Clinic worked on a single project, investment chain mapping (ICM) of investments that threaten land and natural resource rights with its client Inclusive Development International. Over the next two years the Clinic will continue the focus on land rights with a new client, Landesa, developing country-specific best practice guidelines for a new wave of investments in agriculture.
Joanne Bauer is Senior Researcher, Business and Human Rights Program and Adjunct Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs. She co-leads the Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum based at Columbia and involving more than 260 faculty at 180 institutions in more than 30 countries.
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