Sarah Dadush - The power of contracts to impact human rights | S1 E47

Sarah Dadush is a professor with Rutgers University in the US. She writes and teaches in the areas of business and human rights, consumer law, and social enterprise law. 

​Sarah is a member of the American Bar Association's project to develop Model Contract Clauses for human rights due diligence for business. We discuss how these clauses adopt a revolutionary approach to contracting, one of shared responsibility and collaboration to achieve meaningful change in human rights including modern slavery. 

** The ABA's project on Model Contract Clauses for Human Rights Due Diligence can be found here.  **

Show notes:

​[2:17] Sarah explains the background of the American Bar Association's Business Law Section's working group Contractual Clauses Project.   

[6:11] I share the Australian experience with contract clauses when our Modern Slavery Act was introduced.

[9:01] Contracts can be used to implement the spirit of legislation intended to improve corporate responsibility.

[13:13] Sarah shares her insight in how contracts are powerful vessels for norms in law and society, because of their flexibility. 

[17:56] Contracts can be a way of resetting the transactional nature of relationships, from corporates to government institutions to international agencies.

[20:26] When an entity has a powerful environmental or social purpose, if its contracts are drafted in a transactional way, this can undermine the purpose.

[23:41] Sarah explains how the ABA's Model Contractual Clauses follow a shared responsibility model to address human rights issues.

[27:57] We discuss how the Model Contractual Clauses translate the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights into contractual terms.

[35:45] The Model Contractual Clauses can also be scaled to any company, of any size, in any industry and are entirely customisable.

[41:09] Sarah describes the response the ABA has had to its initiative - which has been positive - from companies, industry associations, international groups like the OECD, and law firms.

For more information, please visit the episode page of the New Earth lawyer website.