Claire Bright is Associate Professor in Private Law as well as the Founder and Director of the NOVA Centre on Business, Human Rights and the Environment at NOVA Law School in Lisbon. She specialises in Sustainable Corporate Governance, Private International Law, International Commercial Law, Comparative Private Law and Business and Human Rights. She holds a PhD in International Law from the European University Institute in Florence, an LL.M in Private International Law and International Commercial Law from La Sorbonne Law School and a Double Bachelor’s degree in French and English Laws from UPEC.

Before joining the faculty at NOVA School of Law, she worked as a Research Assistant at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies of the University of Oxford, an Associate lecturer at Oxford Brookes University and as a Lecturer at the London School of Business and Management. She was also a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute of Florence.

She regularly organizes courses, events and trainings in the fields of Business and Human Rights, ESG, Human Rights Due Diligence as well as Environmental and Climate Change Due Diligence. Her work to date has resulted in numerous publications of peer-reviewed scientific publications in English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, including in the following journals: the “International and Comparative Law Quarterly”, “Business and Politics”, “Sustainability”, the “Business and Human Rights Journal”, the “European Yearbook on Human Rights”, “Nederlands Internationaal Privaatrecht”, “Droit Social”, the “Revista Española de Derecho Internacional” and the “Anuario Español de Derecho Internacional Privado”. She has also contributed to various expert studies and policy reports for NGOs, Governments, as well as European and International organizations including:

• A 2019 study for the European Parliament on Access to legal remedies for victims of corporate human rights abuses in third countries, which was notably referred to in the Draft Report of the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs with recommendations to the European Commission on corporate due diligence and corporate accountability (2020/2129(INL)).
• A 2020 study for the European Commission on due diligence requirements through the supply chains, which forms the basis of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2024/1760/oj. The study was welcomed by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights which observed that ‘it provides a solid and much needed foundation for enhanced policy and regulatory action to address business-related human rights impacts across sectors and global value chains.
• ‘A study for the 11.11.11 and the Working Group on Corporate Accountability on the Options for Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence in Belgiumwhich formed the basis of a legislative proposal on mandatory human rights due diligence in Belgium and is now working in collaboration with the University of KU Leuven to help the Belgium Government in the transposition of the CSDDD.  Available here
• A 2021 mapping (in English and in French) of the Human Rights due diligence regulations and an evaluation of their contribution in upholding labour standards in global supply chains prepared as part of a research compendium for the International Labour Organization (ILO) with the support of the Government of France, and published in G. Delautre, E. Echeverría Manrique and C. Fenwick, Decent work in globalised economy: Lessons from public and private initiatives, ILO 2021, 75-108
• A 2021 legal brief (in Portuguese and in English) on Human Rights and environmental due diligence prepared for the Instituto Marquês de Valle Flôr (IMVF) as part of the Pan-European campaign OurFood.OurFuture implemented in Portugal by IMVF.
• A 2021 study on trade policy and child labour entitled “50 Billions Euros: Europe’s Child Labor Footprint in 2019”, prepared for the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament, June 10 2021. Available here
• A 2022 Study on Responsible Business Conduct in Mozambique: a context assessment of human rights risks for the United Nationals Development Programme, as part of the project on promoting human rights due diligence in global supply chains and leveraging the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights for a just recovery’.
• A 2023 study for the Portuguese Government for the development of its First National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights.
• A 2023 preliminary report complemented by awareness-raising activities throughout 2023 and 2024 to inform the Tunisian Government in the development its first National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights.
• A 2024 report on The impacts of the French Duty of Vigilance Law on Internal Corporate Practices for the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, March 2024.