The Erasmus Research Network on Sustainable Business & Human Rights is engaged to reach out and connect with stakeholders from the fields of business, policymaking, civil society and academia. Find out more about our activities and publications below.
In May 2019, the Erasmus Research Network on Sustainable Business & Human Rights will organise an Expert Meeting on ‘Mainstreaming the People Part of Sustainable Business – Exploring Barriers and Solutions’.
This Expert Meeting is aimed at mapping out the challenges that keep business enterprises and other stakeholders from mainstreaming the people-part of sustainable business, and reflecting on possible ways forward. The Expert Meeting will be a closed session – held under Chatham House Rule – involving a selected audience of experts from the business community, but also some experts from government, sustainability initiatives, and the Erasmus University Departments of Law and Business Management.
In December 2018, ESL’s Department of Civil Law launched a book titled ‘People, Planet, Privaatrecht’.
The book, which is edited by Prof. Liesbeth Enneking, Prof. Martijn Scheltema and Dr. Ilja Tillema, contains highly original contributions by seven excellent Master students on the role that the field of private law may plain in preventing and redressing corporate violations of human rights and the environment in global value chains.
On 29 and 30 November 2018, Erasmus University Rotterdam's Research Initiative Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity organised the international conference on ‘Working on Sustainable Prosperity’.
At the first day of the conference, which brought together leaders from the worlds of business, government, NGOs and academia to discuss the transition towards more responsive and responsible leadership, Prof. Cees van Dam and Prof. Liesbeth Enneking have lead a break-out session on ‘Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights’. At the second day of the conference, which was more academic in nature, Prof. Martijn Scheltema and Prof. Rob van Tulder featured in parallel sessions on ‘Regulating Responsibility’ and on ‘Responsible Financial Markets’, respectively.
In November 2018, the Rotterdam School of Management presented a book titled ‘Mainstreaming Sustainable Business; 20 Years Business-Society Management, 20 Years Impact?’ in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Department of Business-Society Management.
The book contains contributions of more than 80 alumni and of B-SM staff, including ‘Developing the Societal Dimension of a Business School’ (by Muel Kaptein, Lucas Meijs, Rob van Tulder) and ‘Mainstreaming Human Rights in Sustainable Business’ (by Cees van Dam & Heleen Tiemersma)
In March 2018, Erasmus University Rotterdam organised a workshop that brings together experts (academics, policymakers, practitioners and NGOs) to provide a comprehensive view on the Dutch legal and policy framework with regard to sustainable trade and development.
The workshop’s outcomes were reported to the Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade (SMART) project, an EU-funded project involving academic research that promotes sustainable development within the planetary boundaries. The organizing committee joined Prof. Liesbeth Enneking and Prof. Martijn Scheltema (both Erasmus School of Law, Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity) with Dr. Jeroen Veldman (Cass Business School, SMART project). They will also be the guest editors of a special issue of the Erasmus Law Review, to be published in December 2019, which will report on the workshop’s main findings in more detail.