Jump to:Page Content
Home > About Us > Faculty & Staff Directory > John Ruggie
John G. Ruggie
John Ruggie is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government and an Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. Trained as a political scientist, Professor Ruggie has made significant intellectual contributions to the study of international relations, focusing on the impact of economic and other forms of globalization on global rule making. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a survey published in Foreign Policy magazine identified him as one of the 25 most influential international relations scholars in the United States and Canada. Apart from his academic pursuits, Professor Ruggie has long been involved in practical policy work. From 1997-2000, he served as United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Planning, a post created specifically for him by then Secretary-General Kofi Annan. His areas of responsibility included establishing and overseeing the UN Global Compact, now the worlds largest corporate citizenship initiative; proposing and gaining General Assembly approval for the Millennium Development Goals; and advising the Secretary-General on relations with Washington. In 2005, Professor Ruggie was appointed as the UN Secretary-Generals Special Representative for Business and Human Rights, tasked with proposing measures to strengthen the human rights performance of the business sector around the world. In June 2011 the UN Human Rights Council, in an unprecedented step, unanimously endorsed the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights that Professor Ruggie developed. Essential elements of these Principles have also been adopted by the OECD, the International Standards Organization, the International Finance Corporation and the European Commission.
John Ruggie welcomes media inquiries on the following subjects:
Additional experts may be found by clicking on each subject listed. You may contact faculty directly or if you need assistance contact the Communications Office at 617-495-1115.