IDP Business and Human Rights

Kania Mezariani Guzaimi studied Political Science at the University of Andalas (West Sumatera, Indonesia) as her bachelor’s degree.  She worked for more than five years at the Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) focusing on business and human rights.  She was involved in mainstreaming business and human rights issues to multi-stakeholders, including the government, private sector, academia, and other civil society organizations in Indonesia.  She received a scholarship for her master’s degree in International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom. She had an internship in the forest team, at Greenpeace International, London, where she monitored Indonesia’s policies related to palm oil and peatland.  Before joining this program, she was a part-time lecturer and researcher at the ASEAN Study Center of the Islamic State University Fatmawati-Sukarno, Bengkulu, Indonesia.  She is interested in climate change politics and the politics of human rights.

Her study aims to explore the multinational corporations’ (MNCs‘) political power to influence the Business and Human Rights (BHR) Presidential Decree in Indonesia. Her research is an exploratory, multiple case study research which will use the process tracing method in order to analyse the mechanisms of causal inference between non-state actors, in this case MNCs, and the BHR regime in Indonesia.  As a result, it will provide empirical evidence on how and why MNCs influence domestic BHR politics, specifically in Indonesia.