Homa - Human Rights and Business Centre

The Homa – Human Rights and Business Centre was created in 2012 with the support of the Ford Foundation, in Brazil. This initiative is based on the recognition of the existence of an academic field, still not properly exploited, for the production of qualified knowledge about the most difficult and relevant aspects involving the violation of Human Rights by Companies, especially the difficulty of achieving mechanisms for both prevention and accountability of corporations for the violation of such rights. Therefore, the Centre develops many fronts: studies on Business Law; identification of judicial and non-judicial mechanisms capable of giving greater effectiveness to the accountability of companies for human rights violations; case studies on human rights violations by companies; monitoring the implementation of the guidelines of the United Nations and the possibility, from the 26th session of the Human Rights Council, in 2014, of negotiating a binding treaty in this matter, besides keeping a critical look into the elaboration of the National Action Plans. Above all, HOMA wants to transform itself into a space for the exchange of knowledge, recognizing its production from different actors, such as social movements, nongovernmental organizations, the public power and other academic centers, which can broaden the understanding and sedimentation of this field of knowledge, still incipient in the world, and especially in Brazil, titled “Business and Human Rights”.