Erika George

Erika R. George, affiliated faculty with the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS), joined the BU Law faculty in 2024 as the associate dean for equity, justice, & engagement and the Ernest Haddad Faculty Scholar.

A leading international expert in the emerging field of business and human rights, Professor George is the author of Incorporating Rights: Strategies to Advance Corporate Accountability (Oxford University Press 2021), which examines the evolution of demands for corporate responsibility to respect international human rights and various stakeholder efforts to hold corporations accountable for alleged rights abuses. She was a founding member of the editorial board of the Business and Human Rights Journal (Cambridge University Press) and served on the inaugural board of the Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum, a global network of academics. Since 2022, George has served on the board of Shift, a center of expertise on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Professor George’s scholarship has appeared in the California Law Review, the Michigan Journal of International Law, the New York University Journal of International Law and Policy, the Berkeley Journal of International Law, and the Annual Proceedings of the American Society of International Law. She teaches constitutional law as well as international law with focuses on human rights, the environment, business transactions, and trade.

Professor George joined BU Law from the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law, where she taught for over two decades and was the Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law. While at the University of Utah, George also directed the Tanner Humanities Center in the College of Humanities, where she enhanced public humanities engagement, expanded and diversified audiences for public humanities programs, advocated for academic freedom and the right to read, and enriched campus and community engagement through outreach and research. George was also a member of Mellon Foundation-funded working group to develop models for innovative and social-justice-oriented humanities programming. At the University of Utah, she received the Early Career Award and the University of Utah Presidential Commission on the Status of Women Award, and the Black Cultural Center Maya Angelou Innovation in Education Award. Professor George has served as a visiting professor at the University of Cape Town and Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Professor George is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, an elected member of the American Law Institute, a trustee of Earthjustice, and serves on the Executive Board of the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights. She co-founded the PEN America Utah Chapter and was a member of the board of the ACLU of Utah. Previously, George served as a member of the Fair Labor Association Board. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Society of American Law Teachers’ M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award, the Salt Lake City Human Rights Commission Human Rights Award, and the Inclusion Center for Community and Justice Service Award. Utah Business awarded her the Living Color Award for Inclusive Leadership and the Woman of the Year Award for her service and advocacy.

Before joining the legal academy, Professor George was a fellow with Human Rights Watch in New York and conducted investigations in South Africa. She also practiced commercial litigation with Jenner & Block in Chicago and Coudert Brothers LLP in New York. George is a frequent speaker on human rights; sustainability; equity and diversity; environmental justice; corporate social responsibility; human rights indicators; leveraging securities law to protect human rights; multi-stakeholder initiatives; modern slavery and human trafficking; sustainability reporting; and corporate codes of conduct.

Professor George earned her BA with honors from the University of Chicago and her JD from Harvard Law School, where she served as an articles editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. She also holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago. She clerked for Judge William T. Hart of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.