In December 2019, Nicky Touw joined the Rethinking SLIC project as a PhD candidate. On Thursday, the 19th of June, she publicly defended her PhD dissertation entitled "Access to Evidence and the Regulation of Corporate Human Rights Violations," at the Open University in Heerlen.
The Dissertation
Her dissertation, "Access to Evidence and the Regulation of Corporate Human Rights Violations," makes a timely and important contribution to the field of business and human rights. Nicky tackles the critical question of how access to evidence should be organized in civil proceedings against multinational companies for human rights violations in their value chains. She argues that human rights due diligence should not only promote transparency that is created by the company itself but also foster shared knowledge production between companies and stakeholders – an insight with meaningful implications for procedural fairness in litigation.
Moving Forward
As of July 2025, Nicky is stepping into a new role as Assistant Professor of International and European Law at the Open University. She will continue to research the field of business and human rights. In particular, the implementation of international and European law at the national level in that field, as well as the notion of shared knowledge production to understand human rights due diligence obligations.
