Business & Human Rights: Model Contract Clauses for Sustainable Supply Chains

GAIL regional event, hosted by GAIL North America

This panel presents the American Bar Association’s Model Contract Clauses for Human Rights (MCCs), to guide companies and their counsel on achieving responsible sourcing throughout the global supply chains. 

With burgeoning legislation, investor pressure, and consumer demand, responsible and sustainable supply chains are a high priority. The Model Contract Clauses (MCCs) are designed as a practical tool to help buyers and suppliers protect the human rights of workers in international supply chains. They include: 

  • a focus on the remediation of human rights harms over contractual remedies
  • relational dispute resolution mechanisms
  • an obligation of “responsible exit,” by buyers both generally and particularly with respect to force majeure or similar events
  • buyers sharing contractual responsibility for protecting human rights with their suppliers and sub-suppliers
  • a regime of human rights due diligence, requiring the parties to take appropriate steps to identify and mitigate human rights risks and to address adverse human rights impacts, instead of a typical regime of representations and warranties, with concomitant strict contractual liability

This session will provide an introduction to the MCCs, along with an overview of the recently launched book: Contracts for Responsible and Sustainable Supply Chains: Model Contract Clauses, Legal Analysis, and Practical Perspectives, Edited by Susan A Maslow and David V Snyder.

The session will be useful for practitioners from across large and small law firms, in-house counsel, academia, NGOs, civil society and any others who may be interested in adapting, operationalising and implementing the MCCs to protect human rights in supply chains.

This event will be in English. You can access information about each speaker below. Further speakers will be added.

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Moderator

Elizabeth Lange

 

Partner, Faegre Drinker  Biddle & Reath LLP

 

Elizabeth Lange represents public and private clients, including Fortune 50 and startup companies, in mergers and acquisitions, governance, and other corporate and securities matters. Recognized for her involvement in social enterprise and impact finance law, Lizzie has written extensively on legal and regulatory issues relating to social enterprise legal forms.

Speakers

Patrick Miller

Founding Attorney, Impact Advocates Law

Patrick is an international lawyer concentrating on cross-border commercial issues, with an emphasis on arbitration, mediation and litigation. He concentrates on working with Social Impact companies that incorporate a social mission into their business models, particularly smaller, more entrepreneurial companies.

He has worked in the US, Europe and Asia — spending nearly a decade in South-East Asia focusing on commercial disputes with a large international law firm.

He is a strong advocate for social businesses and passionate about assisting these companies when they encounter commercial disputes. He has also advised several social impact startups doing business internationally, providing advice on both legal and business issues.

He is involved in the business & human rights legal community and recently began working with an ABA Business Law Section Working Group that has a developed a comprehensive set of contractual provisions to address potential human rights violations in international supply chains. He can advise companies on establishing responsible supply chains in compliance with emerging regulatory actions.

Given his experience abroad and his commercial background, he is able to provide strategic guidance that addresses his clients’ legal and business objectives, particularly for those doing business in Asia.

 

He has been admitted to the State Bars of California and Florida only.

Sarah Dadush

Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School

 

Professor Dadush’s research lies at the intersection of business and human rights. Her scholarship explores various legal mechanisms for improving the social and environmental performance of multinational corporations. She is the founding Director of the Law School’s Business & Human Rights Law Program and the Responsible Contracting Project (RCP), the mission of which is to improve human rights in global supply chains through innovative contracting practices.

She is a leading member of the American Bar Association (ABA) Business Law Section Working Group to Draft Human Rights Protections in International Supply Contracts and its European counterpart, the European Model Contract Clauses for Responsible and Sustainable Supply Chains Working Group. Additionally, she serves as Co-Chair of the Legislative Developments sub-committee of the NYC Bar Association’s Business & Human Rights Committee and Co-Chair of the Responsible Investor Model Clauses (RIMC) sub-committee of the ABA’s Corporate Social Responsibility Committee.

Before joining the Rutgers faculty in 2013, Professor Dadush was Legal Counsel for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Rome. Prior to that, she was a Fellow at NYU Law School’s Institute for International Law and Justice and an associate attorney at the global law firm, Allen & Overy. She received her J.D. and LL.M. in International and Comparative Law from Duke University School of Law in 2004.

 

She teaches Contracts, Consumer Law, Business & Human Rights, Corporate Social Responsibility, and International Development Law & Finance.

Susan A Maslow

Co-Founder and Partner, Antheil Maslow & MacMinn LLP

 

Susan Maslow, a Co-Founder and Partner of Antheil Maslow & MacMinn LLP, is an experienced business attorney with a focus on complex transactional corporate law. Throughout her career, Sue has enjoyed working with clients and their other advisors as an integral part of a comprehensive working group focused on solving business challenges. Armed with both good humor and excellent negotiating skills, she concentrates her practice primarily in the documentation of Business Transactions, Corporate Governance, Private Finance, Service and Supply Contracts, and Non-Profit Operations. Committed to delivering precisely drafted documents, Sue believes getting parties with conflicting interests to agree in writing can be tremendously gratifying (financially and emotionally) for all stakeholders.

Since January of 2020, Sue has shifted her focus to responsibilities as Vice Chair of the ABA Business Law Section Uniform Commercial Code Committee’s Working Group to Draft Human Rights Protections in International Supply Contracts, and Chair of the Corporate Social Responsibility Law Committee. Version 2.0 of the Model Contract Clauses can be found on the ABA Center for Human Rights website and has become a reference point in national and international discussions relating to the role of contracts and corporate human rights due diligence obligations.

 

Additionally, Sue serves as a Senior Advisor to the Responsible Contracting Project out of Rutgers Law School and is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. She has authored numerous articles and has been recognized as a “Super Lawyer” in Philadelphia Magazine for her excellence as a corporate attorney. She has also received recognition as Delaware Valley Region Attorney of the Year, Power Players Awards, from Philadelphia SmartCEO Magazine. Sue completed basic Good Shepherd mediation training to further hone her conciliation skills.