Erika George

Erika George

Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, and Engagement

Professor of Law
Ernest Haddad Faculty Scholar

Biography

Erika R. George 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.

Publications

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  • Erika George & Ariel Meyerstein, Chapter 26: Finance, investors, and human rights, in Teaching Business and Human Rights (Anthony Ewing,2023)
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  • Erika George, Bias and Biometrics: Regulating Corporate Responsibility and New Technologies to Protect Rights 12 Notre Dame Journal of International, Comparative, and Human Rights Law (2022)
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  • Erika George, Beate Sjåfjell and Irene Lynch Fanon (eds.), Creating Corporate Sustainability: Gender as an Agent for Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018) 337 pp. 7 Business and Human Rights Journal (2022) (book review)
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  • Dan L. Burk, Kali Murray & Erika George, Chapter 7: Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S. 576 (2013), in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Property Opinions (Eloisa C. Rodriguez-Dod and Elena Maria Marty-Nelson,2021)
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  • Erika George, Racism as a Human Rights Risk: Reconsidering the Corporate 'Responsibility to Respect' Rights 6 Business and Human Rights Journal (2021)
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  • Erika George, Incorporating Rights: Strategies to Advance Corporate Accountability (2021)
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  • Erika George, Chapter 9. Transformation Through Transparency: Human Rights and Corporate Responsibilities in the Global Food System, in Power, Participation, and Private Regulatory Initiatives: Human Rights Under Supply Chain Capitalism (Daniel Brinks, Julia Dehm, Karen Engle, and Kate Taylor,2021)
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  • Erika George, Jena Martin & Tara Van Ho, Reckoning: A Dialogue about Racism, AntiRacists, and Business & Human Rights 30 Washington International Law Journal (2021)
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  • Erika George & David Restrepo Amariles, Ranking for Good?: A Comparative Assessment of the Performance of French Corporations in Human Rights Rankings 53 The International Lawyer (2020)
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  • Erika George, Shareholder Activism and Stakeholder Engagement Strategies: Promoting Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and Sustainable Development Goals 36 Wisconsin International Law Journal (2019)
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  • Erika George & Lisa J. Laplante, Chapter 14: Access to Remedy: Treaty Talks and the Terms of a New Accountability Accord Building a Treaty on Business and Human Rights: Context and Contours (2018)
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  • Erika George, Chapter 2: The Story of Environmental Justice and Race in the United States, in Human Rights and Legal Judgments: The American Story (Austin Sarat,2018)
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  • Erika George, Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Media Corporations: Incorporating Human Rights through Rankings, Self-Regulation and Shareholder Resolutions 28 Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law (2018)
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  • Erika George & Elizabeth Thomas, Bringing Human Rights into Bilateral Investment Treaties: South Africa and a Different Approach to International Investment Disputes 27 Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems (2018)
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  • Erika George, Chapter 10: The Challenge of Climate Change and the Contribution of African Women to Engendering International Environmental Law, in Black Women and International Law: Deliberate Interactions, Movements and Actions (Jeremy I. Levitt,2017)
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  • Erika George, Imagining Equity and Inclusion: South Africa's International Economic Politics and Reflections on the Writings of Justice Dikgang Moseneke 2017 Acta Juridica (2017)
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  • Erika George, Candace D. Gibson, Rebecca Sewall & David Wofford, Recognizing Women's Rights at Work: Health and Women Workers in Global Supply Chains 35 Berkley Journal of International Law (2017)
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  • Leslie Francis, Robin Kundis Craig & Erika George, FDA's Troubling Failures to Use Its Authority to Regulate Genetically Modified Foods 71 Food and Drug Law Journal (2016)
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  • Erika George, International Human Rights: Legal, Political, and Policy Framework Applicable to the Extractive Industries 2016 Human Rights Law and the Extractive Industries (2016)
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  • Erika George, Chapter 1: The Enterprise of Empire: Evolving Understandings of Corporate Identity and Responsibility, in The Business and Human Rights Landscape: Moving Forward, Looking Back (Jena Martin and Karen E. Bravo,2015)
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  • Comments on the OECD's 'Due Diligence Guidance for Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement in the Extractives Sector' (2015)
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  • Erika George, Expanding the Array of Accountable Actors: Human Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility, 109 American Society of International Law Proceedings (2015)
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  • Erika George, Incorporating Rights: Child Labor in African Agriculture and the Challenge of Changing Practices in the Cocoa Industry 21 U.C. Davis Journal of International Law & Policy (2014)
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  • Commentary on the OHCHR’s Study on Domestic Law Remedies: Corporate Liability for Gross Human Rights Abuses (2014)
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  • Erika George, Influencing the Impact of Business on Human Rights, in Corporate Responsibility for Human Rights Impacts: New Expectations and Paradigms (Lara Jill Blecher, Nancy Kaymar Stafford, and Gretchen Bellamy,2014)
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  • Erika George, Global Health and Human Rights: Legal and Philosophical Perspectives; The Right to Health in International Law 24 European Journal of International Law (2013) (book review)
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  • Erika George & Scarlet R. Smith, In Good Company: How Corporate Social Responsibility Can Protect Rights and Aid Efforts to End Child Sex Trafficking and Modern Slavery 46 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics (2013)
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  • Erika George, Feminism and the Future of African International Legal Scholarship 107 American Society of International Law Proceedings (2013)
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  • Erika George, Incorporating Rights: Empire, Global Enterprise, and Global Justice 10 University of St. Thomas Law Journal (2013)
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  • Erika George, The Human Right to Health and HIV/AIDS: South Africa and South-South Cooperation to Reframe Global Intellectual Property Principles and Promote Access to Essential Medicines 18 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies (2011)
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  • Erika George, Chapter 11: Gender and Globalization: Engendering Social and Environmental Justice by Globalizing Women’s Human Rights, in Globalisation and the Quest for Social and Environmental Justice : The Relevance of International Law in an Evolving World Order (Shawkat Alam, Natalie Klein, and Juliette Overland,2011)
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  • Erika George, See No Evil - Revisiting Early Visions of the Social Responsibility of Business: Adolf A. Berle's Contribution to Contemporary Conversations 33 Seattle University School of Law (2010)
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  • Erika George, International Law and African Judiciaries: The Example of South Africa 104 American Society of International Law Proceedings (2010)
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  • Erika George, A Prescription for Development: Curing What Ails Foreign Aid to Africa Summit 2009 G8 Summit Magazine (2009)
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  • Erika George, Virginity Testing and South Africa's HIV/AIDS Crisis: Beyond Rights Universalism and Cultural Relativism toward Health Capabilities 96 California Law Review (2008)
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  • Erika George, The Place of the Private Transnational Actor in International Law: Human Rights Norms, Development Aims, and Understanding Corporate Self-Regulation as Soft Law 101 Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of International Law) (2007)
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  • Erika George, After Atrocity Examples from Africa: The Right to Education and the Role of Law in Restoration, Recovery, and Accountability 5 Loyola University Chicago International Law Review (2007)
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  • Erika George, The Criminal Enterprise? Corporations and International Human Rights Issues of Accountability and Liability at Home and Abroad, Criminal Jurisdiction 100 Years after the 1907 Hague Peace Conference: 2007 Hague Joint Conference on Contemporary Issues of International Law (2007)
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  • Erika George, The Criminal Enterprise? Corporations and International Human Rights Issues of Accountability and Liability at Home and Abroad, in Criminal Jurisdiction 100 Years After the 1907 Hague Peace Conference (2007)
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  • Norma Kriger & Erika George, Unprotected Migrants: Zimbabweans in South Africa’s Limpopo Province (2006)
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  • Erika George, Chapter 2: Failing the future: development objectives, human rights obligations and gender violence in schools Combating Gender Violence in and Around Schools (2006)
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  • Erika George, Instructions in Inequality: Development, Human Rights, Capabilities, and Gender Violence in Schools 26 Michigan Journal of International Law (2005)
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  • Erika George, Scared at School: Sexual Violence Against Girls (2001)
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  • Erika George, The Fourth Amendment's Forcing of Flawed Choices: Giving Content to Freedom for Residents of Public Housing - Pratt v. Chicago Housing Authority, 848 F. Supp. 792 (N.D. Ill. 1994) 30 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review (1995)
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