Dr Karin Buhmann is Professor of Business & Human Rights at Copenhagen Business School (CBS), a Danish business university with a commitment to corporate sustainability. Her research and teaching focus on public regulation to connect business activity and public policy. Her research has a strong focus on the interaction between public and private hard, soft and smart-mix regulation, sources of norms and their implementation in national and transnational contexts.
Professor Buhmann’s research interest interests include the evolution and implementation of soft and hard regulatory instruments related to business and human rights, both as an emergent regime and as part of CSR. In regard to the evolution, she has been looking at regulatory and communicative strategies for generating organizational buy-in without compromising the core objectives of the regulatory process. In regard to implementation, her current research turns around the concept of risk-based due diligence as a management process set out by the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises for companies to identify, prevent, mitigate, account for and remedy their adverse impacts. She is developing research comparing Global South and High North (Arctic) processes, practices and experiences in this field, with a particular emphasis on meaningful stakeholder engagement, especially with rights-holders. Her research interests in this area considers potential benefits as well as adverse social impacts of natural resource exploration and extraction, aiming to identify best practice. In this context, she is currently involved in the development of a research network on socially responsible transitions to a non-carbon economy.
Since 2012 professor Buhmann has served as one of the members of the Danish National Contact Point under OECD’s Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. She is the co-founder and lead of The BHRights Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching on Business and Human Rights, and the lead and a founding member of the UArctic Thematic Network (TN) on Arctic Sustainable Resources and Social Responsibility.
Buhmann has published widely in international journals and edited volumes.
A complete academic profile is available on her faculty webpage.