Symposium Date:
February 25 - 28, 2010

Location:
York University/Schulich School of Business, Toronto, ON

Information:
Michael Windle
mwindle@cbern.ca
www.businessethicscanada.ca/about/bhrs/

Symposium details and special features:
This event was designed to draw Canadian academics, who are engaged in research on business and human rights from a variety of disciplines, into dialogue with each other and with non-academics actively engaged with human rights issues in what is becoming a dominant theme in the field of business ethics. The event was limited to twenty-five participants and included five leading international scholars with active research interests in the field.

The Symposium had several unique features:

All participants contributed either a principal paper or a commentary on a principal paper;

All participants read all papers and commentaries prior to the symposium. Papers and commentaries were not read at the symposium;

Papers were grouped by topic at the symposium. Participants that drafted principal papers had ten minutes to review highlights of their paper. Commentators of principal paper were given five minutes to summarize their responses. The bulk of time in each session was then spent in roundtable discussion. All sessions were plenary sessions;

Selected papers and commentaries will be published in an edited volume by an international publisher.

The symposium was academic in nature. However, people not holding academic positions and who are actively engaged by virtue of their work in government, business or the voluntary sector were invited to participate. In-depth reports or commentaries on business and human rights by NGO's or government or business organizations were welcomed as principal papers. However, it was assumed that non-academics would, for the most part, contribute commentaries on principal papers. Participants had the opportunity to write commentaries on as many principal papers as they wished.

Papers were welcomed on any subject area that intersects with the theme. Subject areas included business and human rights in the context of the environment, labour, poverty, economic development, the law, spheres of influence, zones of conflict, authoritarian regimes, minorities and so on.

Selected papers and commentaries will be published in a special edition of Business Ethics Quarterly, guest-edited by the symposium's director and two international workshop participants, Denis Arnold (Philosophy--US) and Peter Muchlinski (Law--UK). The call for papers for this special edition can be found at: https://www.ethicshare.org/node/694927.

A selection of papers will also be published in book format by Edward Elgar publishers (www.e-elgar.com).