FARIS NATOUR

Faris Natour is an internationally recognized expert with 25 years of experience working in business and human rights, sustainability, and responsible technology. As Principal of Article One, Faris advises the world’s leading companies on strategic approaches to embedding human rights and sustainability throughout the value chain. Faris also serves as a lecturer at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, where he teaches business and human rights in the MBA and undergraduate business program.

A lawyer by training, Faris focuses on human rights and environmental due diligence, human rights strategy, aligning with key regulatory standards such as CSDDD, CSRD, and UFLPA, supply chain sustainability, and responsible innovation. His clients have included corporate and institutional leaders such as Amazon, Cisco, Google, IKEA, Microsoft, NVIDIA, the OECD, Gap Inc., Rio Tinto, Starbucks, Target, Unilever, UNICEF, VF Corporation, and Visa. Faris has led strategy and due diligence projects in countries including Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Guatemala, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, UK and USA.

Before co-founding Article One, Faris spent 10 years at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) where he led BSR’s global human rights practice as Managing Director. In addition to advising companies on human rights strategy and management systems, Faris established and led the BSR Human Rights Working Group, a group of over 30 multinational companies collaborating on implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Faris has also worked at Calvert Investments, where he was responsible for investment analysis of corporate human rights performance. A German national, he has also worked at Human Rights Watch and at the European Commission Delegation in Washington, D.C.

Faris received an LL.M. in International Law from George Washington University Law School, and a law degree from Universitaet Regensburg, Germany.  He serves on the board of the Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley, and has served as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Human Rights.