Faris Natour

Director & Lecturer, Human Rights & Business Initiative

Faris Natour leads the Human Rights and Business Initiative for the Center for Responsible Business. He brings more than a dozen years of experience in human rights and business to Haas, having led the human rights practice at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and human rights research and advocacy at Calvert Investments. Faris, who is also a Lecturer at Haas, has advised many of the world’s leading businesses and will bring this practical experience to Haas.

Faris joined BSR in 2005 as a manager in Advisory Services, and focused on sustainability reporting, stakeholder engagement, and human rights. From 2008 to 2010, he led BSR’s research team, which identifies key trends in sustainability and translates them into opportunities for business. Prior to joining BSR, Faris spent four years as a social research analyst and team leader with Calvert Group, where he was responsible for investment analysis of corporate human rights performance.

A German national, he has also worked at Human Rights Watch and at the European Commission Delegation in Washington, D.C. Faris has taught business and human rights at the Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights and will teach a course on the same subject at UC Berkeley in the spring of 2015. A member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Human Rights and the UN Global Compact Working Group on Human Rights, Faris holds law degrees from George Washington University Law School and the University of Regensburg, Germany.