Over the course of 2019, LSE Laboratory for Advanced Research on the Global Economy Visiting Fellows Andrea Saldarriaga and Andrea Shemberg, in collaboration with Anna Triponel and Krystel Bassil, created a unique case study based on the experience of the French construction company VINCI in Qatar.
The case study was created with the agreement and involvement of the company, yet the voices of external stakeholders were fundamental to the design and editing of the case study, and full editorial control was left to the authors. The case study is based on close to 40 interviews of people within the company and other stakeholders such as investors, civil society and trade union representatives. The story relates to VINCI’s work in Qatar, the human rights challenges in that geography and the company response to a law suit filed in France by Sherpa, an NGO, for alleged human rights impacts in Qatar.
The case study was designed to help students in law, business, human rights and other related fields learn about
business and human rights challenges, human rights due diligence in practice and evaluate the company’s reaction to the law suit brought by civil society. The case study contains deep detail about how VINCI worked in Qatar as well as the process that led to the initial response to the law suit brought by Sherpa.
A Teachers’ Note accompanies the case study, as does a set of exhibits. The case study can be used in a number of different ways by educators and practitioners, and the materials provided would allow users to use the case either in a short number of hours or even over a period of several weeks of classes or a semester.
The case study is now in its pilot phase and is available to educators and practitioners who wish to use it by contacting Andrea Saldarriaga at: andrea.saldarriaga@gmail.com.
Saldarriaga successfully used the case study at Science Po in Paris this year as did Shemberg at the Almaty Management University’s Business and Human Rights Summer School in Kazakhstan. Shemberg also presented the work at the Teaching Business and Human Rights conference held at the University of Essex in September 2019, making the case study available to the Teaching Business and Human Rights Forum.
Final publication is expected by the end of 2019, and the case study will be made freely available.
