About

Anita Ramasastry is the Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law and the Director of the Sustainable International Development Graduate Program at the University of Washington School of Law. She is an expert in anti-corruption, commercial law, sustainable development, and business and human rights, and is recognized as a pioneer in the field of business and human rights and responsible business conduct. Ramasastry serves as a commissioner on the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, chaired by Baroness Theresa May, and is one of five legal experts advising the UN Human Rights Council on drafting a business and human rights treaty. She has also served as a legal advisor in international negotiations concerning regulatory frameworks for private and military security companies at the UN. From 2016 to 2022, she was a member of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, serving as its chair in 2020, and from 2020 to 2024, she was the Special Representative on Combatting Corruption at the OSCE. Ramasastry is a founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal and has held various advisory and leadership roles in international organizations, including the World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the U.S. Department of Commerce. Her academic background includes a B.A. and J.D. from Harvard University and an M.A. from the University of Sydney. She has held positions as a visiting professor at Queen Mary University of London, the National University of Ireland, and the Central European University, and has worked as a staff attorney at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and as an associate attorney at White & Case in Budapest. Recognized for her teaching excellence, she has received numerous awards, including the UW Distinguished Teaching Award and the Outstanding Public Service Award.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Law
• Finance
• Business
• Public relations
• Computer Science
• Marketing
• Economics
• Law and economics

Selected publications

• Business and Human Rights

  2026-03-18

  reference-entry

  The field of business and human rights (BHR) is a relatively new field of scholarship concerned with how to address the human rights and environmental human rights impacts of business activity. The term “business and human rights” gained prominence in 2011, when the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) endorsed the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). However, there is a significant amount of scholarship on this issue that predates the UNGPs, and there were other important attempts to develop global norms that influenced the UNGPs, including the draft UN Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations (TNC Code) and the UN draft Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations with regard to Human Rights (Draft Norms). Before the advent of the term “business and human rights,” scholars often referred to corporate accountability for corporations, especially transnational corporations, with respect to the human rights abuses in which they were implicated. The UNGPs, despite some shortcomings, have become a key normative framework, focused on how states, businesses, and civil society can ensure that companies respect human rights and address the negative impacts of their activity. They have also influenced the development of binding regulation in some jurisdictions. The scholarly field of BHR has grown exponentially, especially since the development of the UNGPs, and is interdisciplinary. A key guiding question for lawyers is: How can states effectively regulate corporate actors and how can victims of corporate human rights abuses seek effective redress for harm they have suffered? Much of the early scholarship was written by scholars primarily, but not exclusively, from the Global North. This work focused on how to curb or constrain the human rights impacts of home states and their corporations, especially with respect to transnational corporate harms. Today, there is a burgeoning and truly global BHR scholarship. For readers who are new to the field of BHR, reading articles and books that provide a historical perspective and which cover the field as it emerged in the time before the UNGPs provides important context for more recent scholarship, where authors often assume that readers have a familiarity with the historical context of the field. Readers will encounter a variety of terms in the BHR literature to describe corporations that operate across borders in two or more states, including “transnational corporation” (TNC) “multinational enterprise” (MNE), or “multinational corporation” (MNC). This bibliography will use the term TNC. Additionally, while some scholars distinguish between “human rights violations” and “human rights abuse,” the former referring to actions by states and the latter to actions by private actors such as businesses, this distinction does not reflect international human rights law. This bibliography uses the terms interchangeably without distinction between the two types of actors.

  PublisherDOI

• The <i>Business and Human Rights Journal</i> journey: Looking back, looking ahead

  Business and Human Rights Journal · 2025-10-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Beyond Human Rights Due Diligence: What Else Do We Need?

  Business and Human Rights Journal · 2023 · 2 citations

  • Political Science
  • Business
  • Law and economics

  After the unanimous endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) by the Human Rights Council in June 2011, human rights due diligence (HRDD) has become a common currency widely embraced among stakeholders operating in the business and human rights (BHR) field. The UNGPs envisage HRDD to be the primary tool for businesses to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for adverse impacts of their activities on internationally recognized human rights.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Advisors or Enablers? Bringing Professional Service Providers into the Guiding Principles Fold

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Business
  • Public relations

  After a decade, different businesses adhere to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Some key commercial entities, however, remain largely outside of the UNGPs universe, including professional service providers (PSPs) who are retained by businesses to provide expert advice and services. These advisors include lawyers, management consultants, architects and others. Some may have specialized units that provide advice on the UNGPs when retained solely for that purpose. But when asked to provide general commercial legal advice, to design a building, or restructure a business, such advisors do not typically appear to apply the UNGPs, to identify negative human rights impacts and tailor their advice in a way that prevents or mitigates such impacts. This article explores the connection between the advice provided by PSPs and negative human rights impacts. It underscores the critical need for these advisors to align their business processes and advisory services with the UNGPs to avoid being enablers of human rights abuses.

  Publisher

• Advisors or Enablers? Bringing Professional Service Providers into the Guiding Principles’ Fold

  Business and Human Rights Journal · 2021 · 9 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Business

  Abstract After a decade, different businesses adhere to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Some key commercial entities, however, remain largely outside of the UNGPs universe, including professional service providers (PSPs) who are retained by businesses to provide expert advice and services. These advisors include lawyers, management consultants, architects and others. Some may have specialized units that provide advice on the UNGPs when retained solely for that purpose. But when asked to provide general commercial legal advice, to design a building, or restructure a business, such advisors do not typically appear to apply the UNGPs, to identify negative human rights impacts and tailor their advice in a way that prevents or mitigates such impacts. This article explores the connection between the advice provided by PSPs and negative human rights impacts. It underscores the critical need for these advisors to align their business processes and advisory services with the UNGPs to avoid being enablers of human rights abuses.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Business and Human Rights

  2020-02-26 · 5 citations

  reference-entry

  Business and human rights have not traditionally been addressed or theorized in close connection to each other. Rather, human rights have been seen as the exclusive domain of the state, that is, as a legal or political concept with little relevance or implication for companies. This view has changed dramatically in recent decades. There is now a broad interdisciplinary and dynamic discussion on the potential human rights responsibilities of business. While a systematic debate on the issue can be traced back at least to the mid-1990s, contributions to this debate have increased substantially in the wake of John Ruggie’s appointment as the United Nations Special Representative on Business and Human rights in 2005. This article structures this evolving debate and guides readers to the most relevant sources in the field. The debate has attracted contributions from a wide variety of disciplines and perspectives. This review is limited to contributions published in the broader management and business ethics literature and a selection of key contributions from the legal literature on the topic. Furthermore, with just a few exceptions, it includes only contributions that explicitly refer to human rights in the context of business. Articles that relate to or inform the debate on business and human rights, such as discussions on corporate social responsibility or on human rights in general, but lack the specific connection of both fields were not included.

  PublisherDOI

• Business and Human Rights Scholarship: Past Trends and Future Directions

  Alexandria (UniSG) (University of St.Gallen) · 2019-07-01 · 1 citations

  article
  Publisher

• Editorial: Business and Human Rights Scholarship: Past Trends and Future Directions

  Business and Human Rights Journal · 2019-07-01 · 19 citations

  editorialOpen access

  When the Business and Human Rights Journal (BHRJ) was launched in 2016, we, the journal editors, embarked on a mission to make it 'an authoritative forum for scholars and practitioners to exchange cutting-edge ideas about the complex and evolving relationship of human rights with business'. 1 At the three-year mark, we are proud of the journal's role in helping to define the field and promoting dialogue on many topical business and human rights (BHR) issues. BHRJ reaches a wide audience of both legal and non-legal BHR scholars and professionals. In 2018, the journal achieved 58,006 abstract views (34,083 in 2017) and 24,182 full text views (20,250 in 2017) through the Cambridge University Press online platform.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• State Escheat Statutes and Possible Treatment of Stored Value, Electronic Currency, and Other New Payment Mechanisms

  2016-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Unclaimed property and escheatment is governed primarily by state statutory schemes. State unclaimed property statues require that after a specified period of time, unclaimed and abandoned property escheats to the states. The owner of the property may request return of the property upon proof of his or her ownership. Although several states have adopted the Uniform Unclaimed Property Act as their state escheatment statute,1 there are variations in these state statutes. None-

  Publisher

• Contract, not Regulation: UCITA and High-Tech Consumers Meet Their Consumer Protection Critics

  2016-05-23 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Surya Deva

  2 shared

• Robert C. Thompson

  Chesapeake College

  2 shared

• Mark B. Taylor

  The Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research

  2 shared

• Florian Wettstein

  2 shared

• Kent H Barnett

  1 shared

• Steve Wilborn

  1 shared

• Karen Hagewood

  1 shared

• Mary Whisner

  University of Washington

  1 shared

Education

• B.A.

  Harvard University

  1988

• M.A.

  University of Sydney

  1990

• Other

  Harvard University

  1992

Awards & honors

• UW Distinguished Teaching Award (1998)
• UW Outstanding Public Service Award (2002)
• Philip A. Trautman Professor of the Year