Chris Marsden

Business and Human Rights is not an oxymoron

Chris Marsden is a trustee of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre; he is Chair of our UK-based charity.

He is also Chair of the Business Group of Amnesty International UK. The Business Group seeks to persuade transnational companies to promote human rights both through their own business activities and through the influence they can bring to bear on host governments in countries where they operate.

In July 2004 Chris wrote: "Dealing with Joel Bakan’s Pathological Corporation: A strategy for campaigning human rights and environmental NGOs". Earlier he wrote "Participating in Governance: the Social Responsibility of Companies and NGOs" (in New Academy Review, spring 2003)

Chris also teaches Business ethics and corporate citizenship to MBA students and on Executive programmes. He is Visiting Professor at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées Graduate School of International Business in Paris, for whom he has designed and taught ‘Business in Society’ MBA modules in Paris, Morocco and Japan. He is also Senior Visiting Fellow to the Corporate Citizenship Unit (CCU) at Warwick University Business School, where he also teaches. He was CCU’s founding director from October 1996 to May 1999. He is adviser to the new Academy for Business in Society, a project run by CSR Europe and the Copenhagen Centre. He is an Associate for The Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum, which promotes good corporate citizenship globally. He is on the faculty of SustainAbility, a member of AccountAbility and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

From 1981 to 1996 he worked for BP, initially as educational relations manager and latterly as head of community affairs. From 1992 to 1996 Chris was responsible for promoting and networking BP's community activities around the world. In 1996 he produced BP’s first international report on its community relationships, a process which is now developing into full-scale social reporting.

He was until recently Chairman of Hertfordshire's Education Business Partnership, a trustee of the Community Education Development Centre and President of the Economics and Business Education Association. He was awarded the OBE in 1989 for services to education and industry.

From 1968 to 1980 Chris had a career in education. This included teaching economics in both the maintained and private sectors and being the deputy head of Beaumont School, St Albans, an 11-18 comprehensive school in Hertfordshire. He has an economics degree from Cambridge.

Source: Business and Human Rights

• Faculty member, SustainAbility
• Visiting fellow, Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility

Faculty Members, SustainAbility, accessed July 29, 2009.

Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility PEople, organizational web page, accessed June 20, 2013.