#EthSys Insights 7: Michael Posner

800px-Michael_Posner,_Assistant_Secretary_of_State_for_Democracy_and_Human_Rights,_speaking_at_a_press_conference

#EthSys Insights is a video series where we have experts answer questions about ethical systems design. For our seventh installment, we had the honor of talking with our Human Rights contributor Michael Posner, a professor at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. Michael answered the following questions for us and we recorded his responses (the longest video is 138 seconds long):

  1. Can you explain the impetus for the new NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights?

  2. Isn’t human rights the responsibility of government?

  3. What role can business schools play in improving human rights? What should we be teaching our students?

  4. Can a company act on its own to improve its human rights efforts? Won’t that raise its costs relative to its competitors?

  5. Why should companies pay attention to human rights, above and beyond complying with applicable laws?

The videos are embedded in order below. Our sincere and humble thanks to Michael for sharing his time and knowledge with us.

The image used for this blog entry was taken from Wikimedia Commons.