School News

Only At Stern: Professor Michael Posner, Leading the Way Forward on Business and Human Rights

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NYU Stern Clinical Professor Michael Posner is the Jerome Kohlberg Professor of Ethics and Finance and Founding Director of NYU Stern’s Center for Business and Human Rights, the first-ever center of its kind at a business school when it launched in 2013.

The Center is part of the School’s Business and Society Program, and its research focuses on technology and democracy, values-based investing, global labor and business education. Professor Posner’s new book, “Conscience Incorporated: Pursue Profits While Protecting Human Rights,” provides a blueprint for global business leaders to navigate human rights challenges and adopt sustainable corporate practices.

The Center’s impact on business education goes beyond Stern. In 2016, the Center published the first interdisciplinary textbook on business and human rights, “Business and Human Rights: From Principles to Practice.” And together with the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights at the Geneva School for Economics and Management, the Center co-founded the Global Business School Network, uniting schools in more than 35 countries to add human rights into their curriculum.

Before Stern, Professor Posner served in the Obama administration as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Prior to that, Professor Posner was the Founding Executive Director and President of Human Rights First, a human rights advocacy organization.

Learn more in this video and below:

 

Selection of recent media highlights featuring Professor Michael Posner:

Professor Posner’s policy impact: 

  • Served in the Obama administration as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, traveling to more than 40 countries to represent the U.S. government on a wide range of human rights issues 
  • Chaired the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights in 2010
  • Founding Executive Director and the President of Human Rights First, a human rights advocacy organization. In 1998, led the Human Rights First delegation to the Rome conference at which the statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted
  • As a member of the White House Apparel Industry Partnership Task Force in the mid-90s, he helped found the Fair Labor Association, which he now chairs. The organization brings together corporations, local leaders, universities, and NGOs to promote corporate accountability for working conditions in the apparel industry 
  • Founding member of the Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at promoting free expression and privacy rights on the Internet
  • Spearheaded the U.S. Government's efforts to enhance the effectiveness of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, which works to improve human rights around oil, gas, and mining operations
  • Played a key role in proposing and campaigning for the first U.S. law providing for political asylum, which became part of the Refugee Act of 1980, as well as the Torture Victim Protection Act, which was adopted in 1992
  • Has testified dozens of times before the U.S. Congress 

New book by Professor Posner:

Conscience Incorporated

The cover of Michael H. Posner's new book, which includes his name and the title, "Conscience Incorporated: Pursue Profits While Protecting Human Rights."