BHRE Members
Professor Olga Martin-Ortega
Olga is Professor of International Law at the School of Law, University of Greenwich. She leads the BHRE Research Group, which she founded in 2013. She is currently Senior Advisor on Remedy in Global Supply Chains for Electronics Watch.
Olga is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Corporate Justice Coalition UK and a member of the Board of Directors of the London Universities Purchasing Consortium. She was a member of the Board of Trustees of Electronics Watch for ten years. In 2023 she acted as Head of Natural Resources and Just Transition at the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre.
Her research focuses on business, human rights and the environment, public procurement and human rights and remedy in global supply chains. She has also undertaken extensive research in the areas of post-conflict reconstruction, transitional justice and international criminal law. As part of her research activities she has created and contributed to numerous academic ad practitioners networks, including founding member and acting as the first coordinator of the European Society of International Law Interest Group on Business and Human Rights; founding member and member of the Advisory Board of the Business, Conflict and Human Rights network and the International Learning Lab on Procurement and Human Rights.
Olga’s research has been recognised as world leading in terms of social impact (UK REF2024, 4* Impact Case Study) and has been shortlisted for Green Gown Awards twice (2019, 2021). She was awarded the University of Greenwich Outstanding Researcher Award in 2019. She works with the Modern Slavery Prevention Unit of the UK Home Office, the Local Government Association, the Higher Education Procurement Academy and the OSCE training public sector buyers, producing professional guidance and supporting them in their development of human rights due diligence in their supply chain and modern slavery reporting. She has advised the EU Parliament on mandatory human rights due diligence regulation, the ILO on Fair Labour Recruitment and Human Rights, the Canadian Government on human trafficking in its supply chain and the UN High Level Procurement Network on procurement and labour exploitation.
Her TEDx Talk ‘Public Procurement and Human Rights: Changing the World one Tender at a time’ is available here.
Fatimazahra Dehbi
Zahra co-leads the BHRE, which she joined in 2018. She is a Research Fellow and currently undertaking her PhD focusing on the adoption of an integrated business, human rights and environment approach to the just energy transition.
She graduated with a First Class Honours Degree in Law at the University of Greenwich in July 2019. and completed an LLM in International Rights Law at the University of Essex in 2020. During her degree she worked pro-bono as a Caseworker on the Innocence Project London investigating wrongful convictions and was the President of the University of Greenwich Amnesty International Society.
Dr. Renginee G. Pillay
Dr Renginee G. Pillay is Senior Lecturer at the School of Law at the University of Greenwich. She holds an LLB from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an LLM in International Business Law from University College London, and a PhD in Law from the University of Kent. She also has a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (Distinction) from The College of Law, London (now University of Law), and a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice from the University of Surrey. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Renginee is the author of the monograph The Changing Nature of Corporate Social Responsibility: CSR and Development – The Case of Mauritius published by Routledge as part of the Routledge Research in Corporate Law series in 2015. Her main research interests lie in the areas of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Corporate Governance and Business and Human Rights. Her current research looks at the interplay between the roles of social movements, and legal and extra-legal strategies to foster corporate accountability. In addition, she is interested in contextualised empirical understandings of CSR, corporate governance and corporate sustainability and development, which take into account the local realities of developing countries in particular.
Professor Steven Haines
Steven is Professor of Public International Law in the University of Greenwich. His research today is focused principally on Ocean Governance and the maintenance of safe and secure seas (although he continues to work in the fields of International Humanitarian Law and the law relating to international security). Prior to taking up his current post in Greenwich, he spent four years in Geneva, on the Management Board of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. He also taught as adjunct faculty at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. From 2003 to 2008 he was at Royal Holloway, University of London, as founding Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations; he was appointed to a Chair in 2006. He has a strong record of pro bono work within international civil society organizations. In Geneva he worked with Geneva Call, the NGO that encourages compliance with International Humanitarian Law by armed non-state actors. Since 2011, he has acted as Legal and Military consultant to the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, drafting International Guidelines on the Military Use of Schools in Conflict Zones (the core of the Safe Schools Declaration) that are now endorsed by almost 90 states globally. He joined Save the Children International’s Civil-Military Advisory Board in 2017, becoming its Chair in 2018. With a specialist legal interest in the Law of Armed Conflict Applicable at Sea, he was one of the peer reviewers for the International Committee of the Red Cross’s new Commentary on the Second Geneva Convention published in 2017.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA), was elected a Fellow of the Nautical Institute (FNI) in 1995 and a Member of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (Sanremo, Italy) in 2010. Most recently (2019), he was elected as President/Chair of the UK Group of the International Society for Military Law and the Laws of War.
Steven is also a Member of the Board of Trustees of Human Rights at Sea and he leads on our work on the topic.
Dr Ben Hunter
Dr. Ben Hunter is an Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Greenwich. His research to date has focused on criminal careers, white-collar and corporate crime. He is currently conducting a two year Fellowship funded by the Leverhulme Trust on the topic of corporate environmental crime. Using data on companies who have violated environmental regulations, Ben’s analysis focuses on the patterns related to repeat environmental offending by companies.
Dr. Jing Bian
Bian is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Law, Greenwich University. She has published widely on the comparative financial regulation aspect. Her co-edited book Regulations and Applications of Ethics in Business Practice has just been published. Her book “China’s Securities Market- Towards Efficient Regulation” was published in January 2014 by Routledge (London). Her edited 4 volume book titled “Financial Regulation in China”, which covers the entire Chinese financial system since 1949 will be published in 2019 by Routledge (London). Bian has a track record with research and practical projects for international institutions as well as international transactions. She frequently speaks at academic conferences and industry summits. She has solid practical and commercial experiences. Previously, she held a number of roles in financial institutions; for instance, COO of an innovative finance firm for defence system, and the Head of the Chinese Market for a leading Fintech company located in the City of London. She was a civil servant in the justice department, China.
Dr. Louise Hewitt
Dr. Louise Hewitt is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Greenwich. Louise is currently undertaking her PhD in international law. The thesis is examining the extent to which United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 has formed the foundation for a developing legal framework for the prevention and suppression of acts of terrorism. At the BHRE she is working on our financial crimes and post-conflict reconstruction project. She co-founded (with Director Kristian Humble) the Innocence Project London, a pro-bono clinic dedicated to investigating wrongful convictions. The Innocence Project London (IPL) is the only UK member of the international Innocence Network based in New York. She is also currently carrying out research funded by the Peter Harris Trust, centred on promoting access to justice for disabled witnesses of disability hate crime (the Disabled Witness Project). Louise is also researching into the impact of student’s case work on the IPL.
Dr Özgür H. Çɪnar
Ozgur is Professor of Law and Deputy Head of the School at the School of Law and Criminology at the University of Greenwich. Previously, he was a post-doc fellow at the University of Oxford between 2012-2016. He completed his PhD at the School of Law, University of Essex on the subject of conscientious objection to military service and the case of Turkey. Moreover, he is a lawyer and works as a legal expert for the Council of Europe. His main research interests are business, human rights and the environment, the right to conscientious objection, freedom of thought, conscience and religion and freedom of expression.
Professor Valerie Nelson
Valerie Professor of Sustainable Development, Social Development Specialist at the Livelihoods and Institutions Department, Natural Resources Institute (Faculty of Engineering & Science). She has a first degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, and a MSc in Rural Resources and Environmental Policy from Wye College, University of London. She has worked in international development since 1992, initially in Belize on forest planning and management, conducting field research in Mayan and migrant communities and followed by research at an agricultural research institute of the University of the State of Mexico in indigenous communities in the central highlands of Mexico. Following a 6-month stint in Bavaria supporting partnership development between European, Latin America and Asia protected areas, she joined Oxfam GB's policy department, evaluating their South-South Environment Learning Programme.
Valerie joined NRI in 1996 and has since worked as a social development specialist on a wide range of research and consultancy projects in agriculture and natural resources management in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Valerie has led significant research projects in her specialist areas, including: The social dimensions of natural resource management; Gender and climate change adaptation; Smallholder agricultural adaptation and climate change; Governance of sustainability in global value chains; Fair trade and sustainability standards; and Sustainable supply chain initiatives and responsible business. She has led the NRI Sustainable Trade and Responsible Business Programme since 2013. Early work included pioneering of the use of participatory video in natural resources management in Malawi (1996-1998). She has led multiple complex evaluations and research studies, including multi-country studies, on the following: Fairtrade impact; Sustainability standards and poverty impact; Corporate codes of practice and poverty impact; Trade and global value chains; Responsible, accountable and transparent enterprise; Climate resilience; Forests, livelihoods and sustainable agriculture; Governance of Private Standards. High level consultancies have been undertaken for, amongst others, UNDP, EC, Irish Aid, DFID (now FCDO) and ISEAL.
Associate Members
Seema Joshi
Seema has 20 years of professional experience working globally in law, policy and human rights. She is currently Fashion & IT Campaign Director at Stand.earth. Prior to joining Stand.earth she was Director of Campaigns at Global Withness and Programme Director of Global Thematic Issues at Amnesty International, where she led the organisation’s global work on corporate accountability for nine years. In these role, she engaged in high level strategy development, conducted and overseen in-depth investigations, campaigning and advocacy. Prior to Amnesty, Seema worked as the Ending Impunity Legal Advisor for Global Witness. She also worked for the United Nations in Bangkok, where she oversaw the implementation of a 12-country environmental government programme for Asia Pacific. Seema is a Canadian lawyer, called to the Alberta Bar in 1999, where she practiced litigation. She holds an LL.M from the London School of Economics, as well as a JD and BA in politics from the University of Manitoba, in Canada.
Dr. Veronica Torres
Veronica is an Associate Member of the BHRE and is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University of Catalunya (UOC). Before joining the University of Greenwich she was a lecturer in international law in the Universidad del Norte. She has a law degree from Universidad del Norte (Colombia) and a LL.M degree in International Law from American University WCL (USA). Her work focuses on multinational corporations, human rights and the right to land. She has published on business and human rights and teaches several online courses on the matter. Her PhD dissertation, defended successfuly in 2018, is entitled: A Human Right to Land for Local Communities: A Proposal in the Context of Transnational Corporations’ Control of Land Use.
Dr. Johanna Hoekstra
Johanna is Senior Lecturer at the School of Law, University of Essex where she is a member of the Essex Business & Human Rights Project. Prior to that she was a Lecturer in Law at the School of Law, University of Greenwich. She has a M.Sc. in European Public Policy from Birkbeck College and a LLM in International law from the University of Bordeaux. She completed her PhD at the University of Essex on the legal authority of non-state rules in international commercial contracts. Her research interests include international commercial law, private international law, the relationship between law and policy, and business and human rights.
Dr. Argyro Karanasiou
Dr Argyro Karanasiou is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Birmingham. She holds visiting affiliations with Yale Law School (ISP Fellow 2016), NYU Law (ILI Alumna 2016), Harvard Law (affiliate Faculty staff 2014), Complutense Madrid (ITC 2020). She was formerly Senior Lecturer at the University of Greenwich where she founded the Law and Emerginc Tech and Sciences (LETS) Lab. Her area of expertise is Data Protection and Automated Decision Making and she has have contributed invited expert insights on a number of occasions, most notably for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (AI in recruitment – 2020), the Chatham House (Internet Governance – 2018), the US Air Force (AI & Augmented Cognition – 2018), the Royal Society (Machine Learning – 2016), and the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (Free Trade Agreements and Human Rights – 2016). Furthermore, she has served as a contracted consultant for the Council of Europe (regional South Eastern Europe expert in Media), as an OSCE expert for Online Media, and as a registered European Commission expert for European Research & Innovation. Argyro tweets on all things tech @ArKaranasiou.
Dr. Opi Outhwaite
Opi is a Environmental Law Specialist at the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). Before joining UNEP-WCMC she was a Senior Lecturer in Law at St. Mary’s University Twickenham London and the University of Greenwich. Her research focuses on governance and natural resources including accountability of multinational corporations and public and private governance for health, agriculture and the environment.Opi has published widely in her research areas as well as undertaking numerous outreach and dissemination activities. She has a track record of providing research and consultancy for governmental and non- governmental bodies including as a member of the Electronics Watch Advisory Group and for the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and equivalent bodies in Tanzania and Belize.
Opi is Managing Editor of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law journal ('e-journal') and participates in several networks for international environmental law and business and human rights.
Dr. Claire Methven O'Brien
Claire is Strategic Adviser on Human Rights and Business at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, where she provides expert advice to multinational corporations, international financial institutions, governments, international, regional, and civil society organisations, including in the area of procurement and supply chain management. She is the funder of the International Learning Lab on Procurement and Human Rights and a Member of the Sustainable Public Procurement Group of UN Environment's 10-Year Framework for Programmes on Sustainable Production and Consumption. In 2016 she was the winner of Ireland's Procurement Leader Award 2016. Clear has provided technical support and training on human rights to International Federation of Purchasing and Supply Management, the International Purchasing and Supply Education and Research Association, and the International Standards Organisation ISO20400 Program Committee and works with the BHRE on its public procurement and human rights projects. Claire has a PhD in Law from the European University Institute, Florence and other degrees from the University of Cambridge, City University and LSE. She has been called to the London Bar.
Dr. Nadia Bernaz
Nadia is an Associate Professor of Law and Governance at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Her main area of research is business and human rights. She looks at how corporations and businesspeople can be held accountable for their human rights impact through international, domestic and transnational processes. Nadia has a PhD in international law from Aix-Marseille University in France. Prior to joining Wageningen, she held positions at Middlesex University (London), the Irish Centre for Human Rights (National University of Ireland Galway) and Aix-Marseille University. She is the author of Business and Human Rights, History, Law and Policy. Bridging the Accountability Gap, and runs the blog “Rights as Usual.” Nadia works with the BHRE on its transitional justice and business and human rights research.
Dr. Rosa Ana Alija Fernandez
Rosana is a Lecturer in International Law and International Protection of Human Rights at the University of Barcelona (Spain). She specialises on international criminal law, human rights and transitional justice. She has extensive experience teaching and training on international labour law.
She has been visiting professor at the University of Puerto Rico and visiting researcher at the University of Uppsala and at the Research Centre in Latin-American Criminal and Procedural Law (Forschungsstelle für lateinamerikanisches Straf- und Strafprozessrecht) of the University of Göttingen. She has collaborated with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in training Rwandan lawyers on universal jurisdiction and with international research teams and networks in the field of transitional justice. She is also a member of the research group on Public International Law at the University of Barcelona.
Rosana is involved with the BHRE on its work on business’ responsibilities in post-conflict justice. She leads the Catalan Institute for Peace (ICIP) project on the topic.
Dr. Ruth Abril Stoffes
Ruth is Associate Professor of Law at the University CEU Cardenal Herrera. She holds a PhD, Master in European Union and Master in Gender Equality. She specialises in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and her research interest include the protection of women and girls in armed conflicts. Ruth advices several international organisations including NATO, EU and United Nations. She has been visiting professor at several universities including Antwerp, Lyon, Oxford, East London and Greenwich. Within the framework of the BHRE she participates in research relating to human trafficking and modern slavery of women and girls.
Dr. Farid Mohammed Rashid
Farid studied his BA in law (2004), at Aleppo University, Syria. He completed his LLM in International Law and Criminal Justice in 2010 at the University of East London, UK. In addition, he was awarded his PhD in December 2016 for a thesis which focused on the role and powers of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, titled ‘The Role of the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court: Discretion, Legitimacy, and the Politics of Justice’. The external examiner characterized the thesis as “timely intervention” on the topic. He also became a member of the Centre on Human Rights in Conflict during his PhD. In early 2017, he was also engaged in a research project as a Research Assistant at the University of East London. The project implements and evaluates the impact of a series of writing techniques that foregrounds the use of speaking-writing connection to support student’s development of academic voice and identities. He is currently seeking to publish a new article focusing on the discretionary power of the ICC Prosecutor and its relation to the politics of justice. At the BHRE Farid develops research on environmental related crimes and international criminal accountability.
Dr. Miriam Mbah
Miriam is a Lecturer at the Open University. She joined OU Law School in September 2020 from Bangor University, where she worked as a part-time Lecturer and gained her doctoral qualification in Public Procurement Law. Miriam's research interest is in international and national Public Procurement Law, with a particular focus on sustainable procurement. Miriam's doctoral thesis titled: 'Addressing Human Trafficking through Public Procurement: An Examination of US and Australia Federal Procurement Frameworks' examined the selected countries' procurement frameworks in preventing and mitigating trafficking practices within their supply chains. Miriam has worked on many projects financed by the World Bank Group, Inter-America Development Bank and the European Union, and individual countries. Her consultancy experience expands to countries such as Nigeria, Bahamas, Barbados, Ghana, Vietnam, Bangladesh, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the UK.
Dr. María Eugenia Hernández
María Eugenia is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Valladolid (Spain). She holds a PhD in Human Rights, Democracy and Transitional Justice. She specialises in Business and Human Rights, and her research interest include the impact of mandatory due diligence in access to remedy and human rights abuses in the garment and textile value chain. Maria is also a lawyer mainly focused on tort law and labour cases. She has been visiting researcher at the University of Exeter under the supervision of former president of the UN Business and Human Rights Working Group, Professor Michael Addo.
Dra. Claudia Manrique Carpio
Claudia is Associate Lecturer and Research Fellow at University of Barcelona; Lecturer and Academic Coordinator of the Master in International Studies; Fellow and Country Reporter at CELIS Institute for foreign investment screening. Previously she was a Post-Doctoral Visiting Researcher at King's College.
She specialises in Public International Law, International Economic Law and International Studies, with research interests in the interlinkages between international trade and investment law with developing countries' priorities and sustainable development. Other lines of research relate to private economic actors and international economic law; and good governance and domestic regulation in international trade in services and investment.
She has been visiting researcher at Cambridge University-Lauterpacht Centre, at the HEI Institut Universitaire de Hautes Études Internationales, at Newcastle University and Alberta University. She has worked extensively in collaboration with WTO , UNCTAD and the Peruvian Mission for International Organizations in Geneva, Switzerland.