Legal Advisor – Preventing Forced Labour in Critical Minerals and Extractives Sector Lead

GRC is an international human rights law and development firm based in the Hague, committed to promoting international law, particularly international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights. Our BHR team works on a number of projects globally, in collaboration with governments to strengthen the regulatory environment, with businesses to raise their standards, and with civil society organizations (CSOs) and communities to build capacity on access to remedy for human rights violations.

We are looking for a candidate to join our BHR team as a Legal Adviser for our Critical Minerals project and to lead our Extractives Sector strategy. This is a key role within an innovative team to work on a variety of impactful human and labour rights projects in several different countries.

Project Objective:

Given the material limitations of standard due diligence, social auditing and workers’ rights programs, new methods are necessary to identify forced labor facilities, supply chain routes and the legal risk to companies using critical minerals. Most international corporations have been slow to recognize the extent to which their supply chains are exposed to the use of forced labor, requiring additional mechanisms to ensure education and accountability.

The Role

The Legal Advisor will be responsible for supporting Senior Lawyers in their work by carrying out legal research for project activities; analyzing evidence; drafting and editing corporate responsibility and legal accountability materials and tools; preparing preparatory work for the delivery of the project’s corporate responsibility and accountability activities as well as will be developing of training materials for the workshops. In addition, they will, under the guidance of the Senior Lawyer, deliver due diligence training to companies and trade associations implicated by the report.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Project Implementation: draft and review reports, policies, guidance, and other material on elements in business and human rights, and related international law; conduct research on and analysis of evolving regulatory frameworks on business and human rights and associated legislations; support and carry out stakeholder engagement exercises; develop, prepare and facilitate workshops, multi-stakeholder events and training courses; support in the creation and dissemination of a variety of capacity building digital tools on business-related human rights violations, access to remedy, documentation and investigation; deliver project-related advocacy work, including launch events, roundtable discussions, briefing sessions.
• Team management: align with other team members to ensure efficient working streams and timely completion of project deliverables; provide mentorship and support to other team members, offering guidance to enable them to perform to their full potential; actively participate in team brainstorming sessions on project implementation strategies; identify emerging talent and work with them to reach their full potential, ensuring they are developed and given new areas of responsibility.
• Business Development (25%): Reporting directly to the Head of Business and Human Rights, as the Extractives Sector Lead will be responsible for leading and delivering the expansion of GRC’s strategy for work advising corporate clients in this sector.

Qualifications and Background

We are looking for a candidate:

• with an advanced degree in law, 3-4 years of experience and practical knowledge of business in human rights.
• with an advanced degree in law; in-depth knowledge of international human rights or business in human rights who has practical experience working with a variety of stakeholders including civil society organizations, and governmental and intergovernmental institutions;
• who has experience in conducting capacity-building activities with civil society organizations, preferably in the workers’ rights context
• is proficient in English;
• possesses a good understanding of the main issues relevant to the human rights situation; preferably with a good view of emerging trends;
• who has experience in conducting capacity-building activities with civil society organizations
• with an ability to lead and conduct complex investigations, blending traditional investigative techniques and OSINT;
• able to work on their own initiative and with limited supervision, without requiring detailed guidance to get started but who can be given a desired outcome and figure out the action areas required to reach it;
• able to work as part of a multicultural team working towards a common goal and respectful of differentiating working approaches;
• who is flexible, versatile, and creative and able to work in a changeable & fast-moving environment, and capable to spontaneously supporting project deliverables that are not in their remit where needed;
• with a proactive character, suggesting solutions and approaches, anticipating problems and foreseeing potential challenges;
• able to think practically, to break down and pursue the elements required to operationalise a strategy;
• administratively competent; able to manage competing urgent demands.