
Economic Justice and Rights
The Economic Justice and Rights Division works to build just economies based on respect for human rights. We investigate how the global economic system both drives inequality that undermines human rights and enables private actors to harm communities, workers, and the environment. Our work is driven by rigorous, thorough, and objective investigations. The Poverty and Inequality program exposes policies and practices that concentrate wealth in private hands at the expense of public well-being, challenging corruption, deregulation, privatization, and the dismantling and underfunding of tax-funded systems of social protection. Our Corporate Accountability program works to ensure that products and services are free from abuse or exploitation by holding businesses accountable for the human rights impacts of their operations, investments, and supply chains. Our work illuminates opaque and diffuse global supply chains and investment flows that obscure involvement in human rights abuses—from forced labor to environmental destruction—and advocates for stronger regulation of industries at home and abroad.
Videos
Videos-
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May 4, 2025
Facing the Bulldozers
Iban Indigenous Resistance to the Timber Industry in Sarawak, Malaysia
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April 10, 2025
New Data Exposes Global Healthcare Funding Inequalities
World Health Day a Clarion Call to Improve Public Health Funding
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News
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April 24, 2025
EU: New Law Requires Companies to Tackle Forced Labor
Creating Process to Ban Sale of Products Made with Forced Labor in the EU
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April 24, 2025
Q&A: European Union Forced Labor Regulation
Human Rights Watch and Cornell Global Labor Institute (GLI)
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April 16, 2025
Trump’s Economic Policies Show Need for a ‘Human Rights Economy’
Administration Should Promote Rights, Not Undermine Them
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April 15, 2025
German Coalition’s Troubling Plans on Social Security
Punitive, Less Supportive Welfare System Will Harm Rights
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April 10, 2025
New Data Exposes Global Healthcare Funding Inequalities
World Health Day a Clarion Call to Improve Public Health Funding
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April 3, 2025
States Take Steps Toward Reforming Economic Approaches with Rights
UN Rights Council Resolution Addresses Key Global Economic Issues
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April 1, 2025
Germany’s Social Democrats Should Defend EU Supply Chains Laws
New Government Should Not Weaken Human Rights Protections
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March 24, 2025
Germany: Social Security Failing to Protect Rights
New Government Should Act to Address Poverty, Gender Inequality
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March 23, 2025
Joint Letter to Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel
Re: Expand the universal Child Grant in the coming budget