Join the Harvard Club and a panel of expert Harvard Law School alumni as we discuss career paths and key trends in business and human rights legal profession.
Business and human rights is a specific sub-topic of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) framework that has been a hot topic on the rise globally. Business and human rights plays an important role in promoting international protections for communities and the environment by ensuring companies take better action on their corporate social responsibilities and commitments. Understanding the key risks and implementation of business and human rights, however, remains a concept that most people are unfamiliar with. What are the key business human rights responsibilities for companies? How do companies implement these responsibilities in practice? What does it look like to advise companies in identifying and implementing these responsibilities?
To help our members better understand the key issues of business and human rights in a meaningful way, the Harvard Club has brought together a panel of legal experts to talk about their career paths, the key trends they advise on and why human rights is a unique and important topic for corporations, consumers and society.
About the Panelists
Anita Ramasastry HLS ’92 is the Henry M Jackson Professor of Law and Director of the Sustainable International Development Graduate Program at the University of Washington. From 2016-2022 she was a member of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights. She is a co-founder of the Business and Human Rights Journal, a peer-reviewed journal published by Cambridge University Press, and advises a number of organizations focused on the subject, including Global Witness, the Institute for Human Rights and Business, and the Global Business and Human Rights Initiative.
Komala Ramachandra, HLS ‘10 is the head of social, labor & human rights at Gap Inc., focusing on protecting workers’ rights and wellbeing in facilities that manufacture Gap Inc. branded apparel around the world. She designs and implements Gap Inc.’s strategies on human rights due diligence, fair wages, and global partnerships. Komala has been a human rights advocate for over 15 years, seeking to hold
companies and financial institutions accountable for human rights and environmental impacts globally. Prior to joining Gap Inc., she worked on corporate responsibility at the World Bank Group, Human Rights Watch, and Accountability Counsel.
Ariel Giumarelli, HLS ‘17 is an Associate of Paul Hastings and is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. Her practice focuses on business and human rights, ESG, anticorruption and sanctions. Ms. Giumarelli received her law degree from Harvard Law School in 2017 and received an Executive Certificate from the University of Oxford Saïd Business School’s Leading Sustainable Corporations Programme in 2021. From 2017-2018, she served as a Harvard Law School Public Service Venture Fund (PSVF) and Redstone Fellow at the International Federation for Human Rights in Brussels, Belgium. As a PSVF and Redstone Fellow, she developed business and human rights legal research and assisted in advocacy at the European Union institutions and the 39th United Nations Human Rights Council. She also served as an ETA Fulbright Scholar in South Korea from 2012-2013.
Emil Lindblad Kernell, HLS LLM ‘17 is the Business and Human Rights Counsel at Ericsson, a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. Before joining Ericsson, in April 2022, Emil worked in the Human Rights and Business Department at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, the national human rights institution of Denmark. In his current role, Emil works with the overarching human rights strategy and human rights governance of Ericsson, setting up the necessary processes to adhere to UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as well as new and emerging laws and regulations in the area of human rights.
