Our latest report, “Making ESG Real: A Return to Values-Driven Investing,” explains the historical wrong turn taken by ESG investors, and proposes ways to re-prioritize the protection of the environment and society.
Our latest report, “Reality Check: How to Protect Human Rights in the 3D Immersive Web,” explains the risks to privacy and safety exacerbated by immersive technologies and recommends steps tech companies and the government can take to minimize those risks.
Our latest report, Safeguarding AI: Addressing the Risks of Generative Artificial Intelligence, identifies he risks related to generative AI and recommends steps tech companies and the government can take to minimize those risks.
Our latest report, Gaming The System: How Extremists Exploit Gaming Sites And What Can Be Done To Counter Them, describes how extremist actors are exploiting online gaming sites to disseminate violent ideologies, network with like-minded people, and perpetrate real-world harm. The report recommends concrete steps the gaming and gaming-adjacent industries should take to counter such exploitation and avoid serious harm to users and society.
Our latest report on global supply chains and manufacturing coincides with the tenth anniversary of the tragic Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013. In the decade since Rana Plaza, garment factory safety in Bangladesh has improved. But global apparel brands and retailers continue to put exploitative economic pressure on factory owners.
This role-play exercise asks a broad question: how should US companies and investors respond when SenseTime and other technology firms are added to the Entity List? What affirmative responsibilities, if any, do US companies and investors bear for addressing privacy rights and for declining to invest in or have commercial relationships with Chinese firms like SenseTime that are assisting the mass surveillance efforts in Xinjiang.
Research Director, Dorothee Baumann-Pauly published a white paper in collaboration with the World Economic Forum which assesses recent approaches to formalizing artisanal and small-scale mining of cobalt. The learnings from the cobalt context in the DRC can help guide companies on how to address human rights issues in their global mineral supply chains and improve working conditions of more than 40 million people in artisanal mining worldwide.
This paper maps existing efforts to establish responsible sourcing strategies for cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It highlights the need to address the systemic human rights risks of artisanal mining practices that are a business reality in the DRC. It assesses the prospects of formalizing artisanal mining practices.
In June 2020, we shifted our focus to content moderation, publishing Who Moderates the Social Media Giants? A Call to End Outsourcing. This report recommends that Facebook and its rivals stop outsourcing responsibility for what gets removed from their platforms and instead embrace this vital function themselves.
The NYU Stern Center for Business & Human Rights received the North Star Award at the Green Carpet Fashion Awards in Milan. The award acknowledged the Center’s report, “Made in Ethiopia: Challenges in the Garment Industry’s New Frontier,” authored by Paul Barrett and Dorothee Baumann-Pauly, as the most important academic research development from the past year. Dorothee Baumann-Pauly and Auret van Heerden accepted the award on NYU Stern CBHR’s behalf.
Author Maggie Miller quotes Michael Posner and Deputy Director Paul Barrett on the potential use of social media to spread disinformation related to the 2020 presidential election. Barrett calls on Congress to use its position to educate the public about the threat and increase digital literacy through bipartisan hearings.
In September 2019, we published Disinformation and the 2020 Election: How the Social Media Industry Should Prepare. This report looks at the types and sources of false content likely to surface during the next presidential campaign. It also provides recommendations to the major social media companies for responding to disinformation.
