New Director of the Human Rights & Business Department

Allan Lerberg Jørgensen will take up the position as new Director of the Human Rights & Business Department at the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

Mr. Jørgensen is taking up the position as Director of the Human Rights & Business Department at the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR), after Dr. Margaret Jungk who is taking a leave of absence as the Director of the business department to fulfill her newly appointed role as a member of the new UN Working Group on Human Rights and Business.

Allan Lerberg Jørgensen has, for the past six years, led DIHR’s direct engagement with multinational companies on the management of human rights. Mr. Jørgensen has developed large-scale human rights implementation efforts in collaboration with a number of world-leading companies in the extractive, pharmaceutical, food, agribusiness and manufacturing industries, and has played a key role in establishing the Institute’s growing number of multi-year partnerships on human rights with companies including Total, Nestlé and Rio Tinto.

Mr. Jørgensen was closely involved in the establishment of the International Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights Institutions’ Working Group on Business and Human Rights and has been leading the development of the Human Rights and Business Country Portal.

More focus on private sector
As Department Director Mr. Jørgensen will be responsible for strengthening the work of DIHR towards private sector actors. This includes strengthening DIHR’s relations to international and national stakeholders.

- To accomplish our mission, the DIHR remains committed to working with all actors at all levels. We will continue to engage the corporate sector directly and we will increasingly mainstream business sector issues into our human rights work with state actors, civil society organizations and our fellow National Human Rights Institutions around the world, says the new Department Director about the Institute’s work in the business field.

Mr. Jørgensen holds MA degrees in political science and international conflict analysis and was engaged in business and globalization issues in his previous roles with the Confederation of Danish Industries and the Copenhagen Centre for Corporate Responsibility, prior to joining the Danish Institute for human rights six years ago. He will commence official duties in his new role from 1 May 2012.

Read more and visit DIHR’s Human Rights & Business website here.