Reimagining remedy: developing effective grievance mechanisms and remedies

Since 2005, I have been deeply involved in business and human rights. After a long career in private practice as deputy general counsel for a multinational energy company, in 2008, I joined the UN mandate team of the late Harvard Kennedy School Professor John Ruggie, the former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Business and Human Rights (SRSG). I served as his senior legal adviser and worked with him and his core team to shape and draft the 2011 UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which have become the recognized global standard. From 2011 to 2023, I served as General Counsel and Senior Advisor to the Shift Project, an independent nonprofit that Prof. Ruggie chaired until he died in 2021. During this time, I was also a Senior Program Fellow at the Corporate Responsibility Initiative at the Kennedy School’s Center for Business and Government. I have been active in the IBA’s work on business and human rights, including acting as the SRSG’s liaison with the IBA; Chairing the ABA’s CSR Committee; chairing the IBA committee that drafted its first Practical Guide for Business Lawyers on Business and Human Rights in 2016; and contributing to the drafting of the IBA’s revised Practical Guide in 2023. I am a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. I live in Greater Boston. Selected Writings: -Integrating Human Rights Due Diligence into Supply Chain Contracts, Chapter 16 in Susan A Maslow and David V. Snyder, eds., Contracts for Responsible and Sustainable Supply Chains, (ABA Business Law Section, 2023). -Human Rights Due Diligence and Corporate Governance, Human Rights Due Diligence for Lawyers, American Bar Association, Chapter 6 in Corinne Lewis and Constance Z. Wager (eds.), A Guide to Human Rights Due Diligence for Lawyers (ABA International Law Section, 2023). -The Corporate General Counsel Who Respects Human Rights, Legal Ethics Journal, Vol. 24, 2021 (Taylor & Francis Online, 2021). -Beyond CSR: The Story of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, Chapter 22 in Rae Lindsay and Roger Martella (eds.), 'Corporate Responsibility, Sustainable Business: Environmental, Social and Governance Frameworks for the 21st Century; (Kluwer Law International, 2020). -Irresponsible Exit: Exercising Force Majeure Provisions in Procurement Contracts, Business and Human Rights Journal, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2021 (Cambridge University Press, 2021). -Co-authored with John G. Ruggie, The Concept of ‘Due Diligence’ in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Reply to Professors Bonnitcha and McCorquodale, The European Journal of International Law, Vol 28, no 3 (2017). -Co-authored with John G. Ruggie, Adding Human Rights Punch to the New Lex Mercatoria: The Impact of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights on Commercial Legal Practice, Journal of International Dispute Settlement, 2015, 6, 455–461.

Roger Martella is GE’s Vice President, Chief Sustainability Officer for the General Electric Company. In this role, Roger coordinates GE’s mission-critical focus on contributing technology and innovation solutions to the global challenges of the energy transition and climate change, precision health, and the future of flight. Roger leads efforts to operationalize the Company’s ESG actions and engagement with diverse stakeholders to implement solutions toward these global challenges with the same heightened rigor that GE runs its businesses. Prior to GE, Roger co-lead Sidley Austin LLP's tier 1 ranked global environmental law and climate change practices. Prior to Sidley, Roger was General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate, and the Principal Counsel for Complex Litigation for the Justice Department’s Natural Resources Section. Roger currently teaches a first of its kind International Environmental Law and Justice class at Howard University Law School. Several ranking organizations have awarded Roger their top ratings and hall of fame recognitions for environmental and climate change law globally and in the United States. Roger has co-authored and edited four books on the intersections of climate change law, international environmental law, human rights, and ESG, including co-editing the recently published Corporate Social Responsibility—Sustainable Business: Environmental, Social and Governance Frameworks for the 21st Century (Wolters Kluwer 2020) and has addressed the United Nations, Congress, and other entities on these topics on many occasions. He is an active board member of the Environmental Law Institute, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) and several environmental NGOs, energy think tanks, and “intrapreneurship” organizations and serves on the executive council of both the International Bar Association’s and ABA’s environmental sections (SEERIL and SEER), where he promoted and helped draft recent presidential-level climate resolutions. Roger graduated from Vanderbilt Law School, where he was editor in chief of the Vanderbilt Law Review, and Cornell University. He grew up in Norristown, PA, where his family ran a corner Italian bakery.