Purpose
The Business and Human Rights Research Cluster seeks to foster collaborative interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research in the field of business and human rights. The cluster aims to examine the diverse range of interactions that can arise when business conduct affects human rights from a variety of perspectives. The membership is comprised of academics in disciplines including politics, law, management, accounting and finance, strategy and marketing, economics, anthropology, geography and international relations.
Background
The Business and Human Rights Research Cluster was established in its current form in September 2024. The cluster’s first activity was an online meeting in January 2025 with colleagues at the Business and Human Rights Project at the University of Essex. In May 2025, the cluster held its first funded workshop at the University of Sussex.
Looking forward
The activities undertaken by the Business and Human Rights Research Cluster are driven by its members. We aim to work together to produce research outputs, prepare research funding bids and supervise PhD students. We are open to collaborating with academics based from all over the world. If you would like to work with the cluster, please contact Dr Edward Guntrip.
Membership
The current membership of the cluster is:
Dr Shoaib Ahmed – Associate Professor in Accounting (Accounting and Finance)
Dr Qingxiu Bu – Reader in Global Law (Law)
Prof. Grace Carswell – Professor of Geography and International Development (Geography)
Prof. Geert De Neve – Professor of Social Anthropology and South Asian Studies (Anthropology)
Dr Mattia Di Ubaldo – Principal Research Fellow in International Trade (Economics)
Dr Matthew Evans – Associate Professor in Law (Law)
Dr Shahrzad Fouladvand – Associate Professor in International Criminal Law (Law)
Dr Julian Germann – Associate Professor in International Relations (International Relations)
Dr Ahmad Ghouri – Associate Professor in Commercial Law (Law)
Dr Paul Gilbert – Reader in Development, Justice and Inequality (Anthropology)
Dr Edward Guntrip – Associate Professor in International Law (Law)
Prof. James Hampshire – Professor in Politics (Politics)
Dr Chaya Jayathileka – Assistant Professor in Accounting (Accounting and Finance)
Dr David Karp – Associate Professor of International Relations (International Relations)
Dr Matilde Lucheschi – Associate Professor in Marketing (Strategy and Marketing)
Prof. Lara Montesinos Coleman – Professor of International Law, Ethics and Political Economy (International Relations)
Prof. Louiza Odysseos – Professor of International Relations (International Relations)
Dr Becky Prentice – Associate Professor in Anthropology and International Development (Anthropology)
Dr Dinah Rajak – Associate Professor in Anthropology and International Development (Anthropology)
Dr Mike Rogerson – Assistant Professor in Operations Management (Management)
Dr Steven Rolf – Principal Research Fellow (Management)
Prof. Adrian Smith – Professor of Management (Management)
Prof. Anna Stavrianakis – Professor of International Relations (International Relations)
Sarah Stephens – Associate Professor in Legal Innovation (Law)
Dr Xiangming (Tommy) Tao – Assistant Professor in Innovation and Project Management (SPRU)
Prof. Sarah Tobin – former Visiting Professor (Anthropology) (Research Prof. at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway)
Dr Lilith Whiley – Associate Professor in Occupational and Organisational Psychology (Management)
Publications
2024
- Guntrip, E. (2024). Counterclaims in Investment Arbitration: Holding Foreign Investors Accountable for Violations of International Law (Vol. 13). Leiden, NL: Brill.
Book. View on figshare. - Coleman, L. M. (2024). Struggles for the Human: Violent Legality and the Politics of Rights. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Retrieved from https://www.dukeupress.edu/struggles-for-the-human
Book.
2023
- Wei, W., Nowak, J., & Rolf, S. (2024). Leapfrog logistics: digital trucking platforms, infrastructure, and labor in Brazil and China. Review of International Political Economy, 31(3), 930-954. doi:10.1080/09692290.2023.2267074
Article. View on figshare. - Karp, D. (2023). Business and human rights in a changing world order: beyond the ethics of disembedded liberalism. Business and Human Rights Journal, 8(2), 135-150. doi:10.1017/bhj.2023.10
Article. View on figshare.
2022
- Guntrip, E. (2022). Domestic human rights frameworks as a means to regulate investments in land, food, and water: a case study of Cambodia. In Investment Protection, Human Rights, and International Arbitration in Extraordinary Times (pp. 181-216). Baden Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG. doi:10.5771/9783748914068-181
Chapter. View online.
2021
- Karp, D. (2021). Business and responsibility for human rights in global governance. In The Routledge Handbook on Responsibility in International Relations (pp. 318-330). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Chapter. View on figshare.
2020
- Karp, D. (2020). Fixing meanings in global governance? "Respect" and "Protect" in the UN guiding principles on business and human rights. Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 26(4), 628-649. doi:10.1163/19426720-02604002
Article. View on figshare.
2019
- Karp, D. (2020). What is the responsibility to respect human rights? Reconsidering the 'respect, protect, and fulfill' framework. International Theory, 12(1), 83-108. doi:10.1017/S1752971919000198
Article. View on figshare. - Coleman, L. M., Loingsigh, G. Ó., Parisi, P., Rojas-Páez, G., & Thomas, O. D. (2019). Righting corporate wrongs? Extractivism, corporate impunity and strategic use of law. London: War on Want.
Book. View on figshare. - Bohoslavsky, J. P., & Guntrip, E. (2019). Unanticipated consequences: the human rights implications of bringing sovereign debt disputes within investment treaty arbitration. In Yearbook on Investment Law & Policy 2017 (pp. 494-535). New York: Oxford University Press.
Chapter. View on figshare.
2018
- Guntrip, E. (2018). International investment law in an isolationist world: a human rights perspective. Human Rights and International Legal Discourse, 12(2), 138-152.
Article. View on figshare. - Coleman, L. M. (2018). Rights in a state of exception. The deadly colonial ethics of voluntary corporate responsibility for human rights. Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 8(6), 874-900. doi:10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-0973
Article. View on figshare. - Guntrip, E. (2018). Private actors, public goods and responsibility for the right to water in international investment law: an analysis of Urbaser v. Argentina. Brill Open Law, 1(1), 37-60. doi:10.1163/23527072-00101004
Article. View on figshare.
2016
- Guntrip, E. (2016). Self-determination and foreign direct investment: reimagining sovereignty in international investment law. International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 65(4), 829-857. doi:10.1017/S0020589316000324
Article. View on figshare.
2015
- Mills, K., & Karp, D. (2015). Human rights protection in global politics: responsibilities of states and non-state actors. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Edited Book. View on figshare. - Karp, D., & Mills, K. (2015). Introduction: human rights responsibilities of states and non-state actors. In Human rights protection in global politics: responsibilities of states and non-state actors (pp. 3-22). Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Chapter. View on figshare. - Karp, D. (2015). The concept of human rights protection and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. In Human rights protection in global politics: responsibilities of states and non-state actors (pp. 137-158). Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Chapter. View on figshare.
2014
- Karp, D. (2014). Responsibility for human rights: transnational corporations in imperfect states. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Book. View on figshare.
2009
- Karp, D. (2009). Transnational corporations in "bad states": human rights duties, legitimate authority and the rule of law in international political theory. International Theory, 1(1), 87-118. doi:10.1017/S1752971909000074
Article. View on figshare.