Ruggie To Assume U.N. Rights Post

Kirkpatrick Professor of International Affairs John G. Ruggie will serve as a United Nations (U.N.) special representative in negotiations with multinational corporations over issues of labor and human rights, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced last week.

As the first Special Representative on human rights, transnational corporations, and other business enterprises, Ruggie, who holds his Harvard appointment at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), will have the task of forging consensus between human rights activists, transnational corporations, and governments over the social responsibilities of private firms.

Ruggie will create policy recommendations to be submitted to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 2007. To prepare for the report, he will organize a series of meetings with representatives from the respective stakeholders, the first of which will occur in Geneva next week.

“It’s finding a formula that the various players can agree to,” Ruggie said. “What can [firms] be expected to do? What are they willing to do to protect the human rights? What’s the role of government?”

His recommendations will address concerns like child labor, racial and gender discrimination, and labor rights.

The Commission on Human Rights called for the creation of the post earlier this spring in response to the growing strength of the private sector, and the diminished accountability faced by many transnational corporations. Annan first approached Ruggie, a long-time colleague, about the job six weeks ago, the Harvard professor said.

“There’s a real need and interest by the U.N. to be in this area and here’s someone who’s knowledgeable in this area,” said J. H. Dow Davis, the executive director of the Center for Business and Government. “It just seems a natural fit.”

Ruggie’s experience at the U.N. dates back to his days as dean of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, when he occasionally advised and lectured at the organization. He became acquainted with Annan personally because they were both players in New York’s international political scene.

In 1997 Annan appointed Ruggie as his assistant secretary general and special adviser on planning, a post he held until 2001.

Ruggie’s current charge is in many ways an outgrowth of his work on the Global Compact, a U.N. group designed, among other things, to promote corporate responsibility. Upon assuming his new post, Ruggie resigned from the Global Compact.

Ruggie’s new appointment also plays to his academic interests in the impact of the globalization of the private sector. He currently serves as director at the KSG’s Center for Business and Governance and is involved in its Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative.

“John’s work has been instrumental in fleshing out our understanding of what corporate social responsibility might mean and beyond that what they’re actually doing on the ground in the realm of politics,” said Pepper Culpepper, an associate professor of public policy at the KSG.

The new post will not affect Ruggie’s Harvard responsibilities, which also include teaching a course this spring on global governance.

“What is unique about his work is that he has been both an influential theorist in this field and a very successful practitioner,” Dean of KSG David T. Ellwood wrote in an e-mail.

“John is emblematic of who we are and what we try to achieve here at the Kennedy School­—integrating the world of theory and practice,” he added.

—Staff writer Natalie I. Sherman can be reached at nsherman@fas.harvard.edu.