PUBLIC LECTURES 2019-2020
MARCH 16 - NKOLBISSON CAMPUS, 5 - 6:30pm
Florian Wettstein, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Business and Human Rights: Past, Present, Future
Florian Wettstein
Florian Wettstein is a Professor and Director of the Institute for Business Ethics at the University of St. Gallen. He is a member of the steering committee of the Swiss Responsible Business Initiative. Florian is Vice-President of the International Society of Business, Economics, and Ethics (ISBEE) and of the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association (BR2R). He is Editor-in-Chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal (BHRJ), published by Cambridge University Press, and the author of Multinational Corporations and Global Justice: Human Rights Obligations of a Quasi-Governmental Institution (Stanford University Press, 2009). He held previous positions at York University in Toronto and at University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is a past fellow of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s “Program on Human Rights and Justice”.
ABSTRACT
Business and human rights (BHR) has been among the most hotly debated and impactful topics in the broader domain of corporate responsibility in recent years. This public lecture aims at providing an overview and critical assessment of recent developments in the BHR domain. The lecture is structured in three parts. The first part provides a brief overview of the history of BHR and the most salient current issues debated today. The second part reflects on some of the dominant conceptions and notions of corporate human rights responsibility that have emerged from this evolving discussion on BHR. The third part will analyze and critically engage with the recent trend toward corporate accountability in the BHR domain as well as with current approaches to operationalize human rights responsibility in business practice. Particular focus will be put on the potentials and limitations of human rights due diligence approaches as well as on the relation between established corporate social responsibility programs and the emerging requirements emanating from BHR.
NOVEMBER 12 - NKOLBISSON CAMPUS, 5 - 6:30pm
Olivette Otélé, Bath Spa University, United Kingdom
Histoire et citoyenneté: vers une construction éthique du récit national
Olivette Otélé
Olivette Otélé holds a PhD in History from Universite La Sorbonne, France. Her doctoral area of specialisation was European colonial and post-colonial History. It included examining questions related to the transatlantic slave trade, slave societies, identities and post-colonial societies in the Atlantic world. Her BA and MA trainings were grounded in British and American Literature and History. Her current research centres around transnational history and in particular the link between history, collective memory and geopolitics in relation to British and French colonial pasts. She charts and analyses the ways in which Britain and France have been addressing questions of citizenship, race and identity through the politics of remembrance. She also enquires into the value of public gestures, the meaning of public history and the impact of cultural memory.
Otélé was born in Cameroon and grew up in France. She is the first black woman to be appointed to a Professorial Chair in History in the UK. She is among others the author of Afro-Europeans: A Short History.
Abstract
Au-delà de la question du souvenir et de l’oubli, l’histoire sert bien souvent à comprendre de quelle manière les nations se construisent et se définissent au travers des récits nationaux. Depuis des décennies, les anciens empires européens font un retour vers un passe prétendument glorieux mais qui en réalité nous renvoie à un imaginaire colonial. Ces tentatives sont toutes liées aux questions de citoyenneté, identité et responsabilité civique. Ces nations ne sont en aucun cas uniques. Cette présentation a pour objet d’interroger la manière dont certaines nations ont occultée les récits de résistances aux pouvoirs dominants afin de pouvoir imposer une identité nationale éloignée à bien des égards des réalités sociales. Nous analyserons donc les usages politiques du passé. Nous nous pencherons sur plusieurs études de cas afin de voir comment histoire, mémoire, résistance, et pouvoir construisent ou déconstruisent certains mythes et certaines communautés. Au cœur de ces discussions se trouvent une question essentielle à toute communauté en proie aux tourment économiques et sociaux: comment construire un récit national de manière éthique afin de placer la question de la citoyenneté et du vivre ensemble aux mains de la population afin qu’elle participe activement aux changements sociaux et politiques ?