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Anita Ramasastry featured for work on human rights

May 2, 2024

Anita Ramasastry, Henry M. Jackson Endowed Professor of Law and South Asia Center affiliated faculty, was recently featured in The Whole U for her work on human rights policies. In her more than two decades at the University of Washington, Ramasastry has helped write uniform laws on human trafficking that have been adopted by many U.S. states, and has worked with organizations such as the United Nations, the Institute for Human Rights and BusinessTransparency International, and Global Witness.

Anita Ramasastry

Ramasastry has also been at the forefront of the business and human rights field, which examines the ways in which business enterprises affect human rights. This work culminated in her tenure as chair of the Working Group on Business and Human Rights for the United Nations, where she strove to implement the “Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

“What was previously made invisible is now visible,” Ramasastry said in The Whole U piece. “You have historians and journalists and other watchdogs exposing [human rights] issues. We are aware that corporations and consumers can be connected to harm halfway around the world. We have frameworks—like what I’ve worked on with the UN—that are attempting to address these issues. And those frameworks are slowly turning into legislation.”

Originally posted by The Whole U