Sarah Dadush

Professor of Law, Rutgers University

Business & human rights, consumer law and social enterprise law

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Sarah Dadush is a professor with Rutgers University in the US. She writes and teaches in the areas of business and human rights, consumer law, and social enterprise law. 

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Sarah is a member of the American Bar Association's project to develop Model Contract Clauses for human rights due diligence for business. We discuss how these clauses adopt a revolutionary approach to contracting, one of shared responsibility and collaboration to achieve meaningful change in human rights including modern slavery. 

 

** The ABA's project on model contract clauses can be found here.  **

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Bio

Show notes

Links

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Bio:

Sarah Dadush is a professor with Rutgers University in the US. She writes and teaches in the areas of business and human rights, consumer law, and social enterprise law.

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Her research lies at the intersection of business and human rights. She explores various innovative legal mechanisms for improving the social and environmental performance of multinational corporations.

 

Before joining the Rutgers faculty, Sarah served as Legal Counsel and Partnership Officer for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Rome.

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Prior to that, she was a Fellow at NYU’s Institute for International Law and Justice, where she administered the Institute’s research program on Financing for Development. She also worked as an Associate Attorney at the global law firm, Allen & Overy L.L.P.

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She received her J.D. and LL.M. in International and Comparative Law from Duke University School of Law in 2004.

 

She teaches Contracts, Consumer Law, Global Business Regulation, Corporate Social Responsibility, and International Development Law & Finance.

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Show notes:

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• [2:17] Sarah explains the background of the American Bar Association's Business Law Section's working group Contractual Clauses Project.   

• [6:11] I share the Australian experience with contract clauses when our Modern Slavery Act was introduced.

• [9:01] Contracts can be used to implement the spirit of legislation intended to improve corporate responsibility.

• [13:13] Sarah shares her insight in how contracts are powerful vessels for norms in law and society, because of their flexibility.  

• [17:56] Contracts can be a way of resetting the transactional nature of relationships, from corporates to government institutions to international agencies.

• [20:26] When an entity has a powerful environmental or social purpose, if its contracts are drafted in a transactional way, this can undermine the purpose.

• [23:41] Sarah explains how the ABA's Model Contractual Clauses follow a shared responsibility model to address human rights issues.

• [27:57] We discuss how the Model Contractual Clauses translate the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights into contractual terms. 

• [35:45] The Model Contractual Clauses can also be scaled to any company, of any size, in any industry and are entirely customisable.

• [41:09] Sarah describes the response the ABA has had to its initiative - which has been positive - from companies, industry associations, international groups like the OECD, and law firms. 

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Links:

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Sarah's bio at the Rutgers University website

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The American Bar Association's Contractual Clauses Project

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Australia's Modern Slavery Unit's resources site, which includes a Procurement Toolkit with Model Contract Clauses

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The British Academy's Principles for Purposeful Business Report

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The UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights 

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Conscious Contracts® website

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