When (and how) should businesses leave a situation of armed conflict?

Abstract

Businesses operating in complex environments, including authoritarian regimes and conflict-affected areas, face equally complex questions of when they should stay and when they leave a situation. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights indicate that businesses must terminate some relationships and operations at some times, but when are those moments? How should businesses decide? This lecture will address the complexity of these questions with reference to businesses operating in Colombia during the state’s 60-year civil war, in Myanmar following the coup, in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and in Russia before, during, and after the invasion of Ukraine. Similarities and differences in these situations will be teased out to come to a suggested framework for making these decisions.

Speaker

Tara Van Ho 

University of Essex

Bio

Tara Van Ho, J.D., LL.M., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in Law and Human Rights at the University of Essex. She specialises in business and human rights in context of conflict and authoritarian regimes. She was a senior legal advisor to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights for their report on businesses’ responsibility for remedies and reparations in the context of transitional justice.

Event organized within the project «Le nuove frontiere della responsabilità sociale d'impresa: verso una crescita verde, sostenibile ed inclusiva», co-funded by the EU (FSE-REACT-EU, PON Research and Innovation 2014-2020 DM1062/2021).