Sarah Dadush
Professor of Law
Biography
Professor Dadush’s research lies at the intersection of business and human rights. Her scholarship explores various legal mechanisms for improving the social and environmental performance of multinational corporations. She is the founding Director of the Law School's Business & Human Rights Law Program and the Responsible Contracting Project (RCP), the mission of which is to improve human rights in global supply chains through innovative contracting practices.
She is a leading member of the American Bar Association (ABA) Business Law Section Working Group to Draft Human Rights Protections in International Supply Contracts, and its European counterpart, the European Model Contract Clauses for Responsible and Sustainable Supply Chains Working Group. She also serves as Co-Chair of the Responsible Investor Model Clauses (RIMC) sub-committee of the ABA's Corporate Social Responsibility Committee.
Before joining the Rutgers faculty in 2013, Professor Dadush was Legal Counsel for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Rome. Prior to that, she was a Fellow at NYU Law School’s Institute for International Law and Justice and an associate attorney at the global law firm, Allen & Overy. She received her J.D. and LL.M. in International and Comparative Law from Duke University School of Law in 2004.
She teaches Contracts, Consumer Law, Business & Human Rights, Corporate Social Responsibility, and International Development Law & Finance.
Publications
ARTICLES & BOOK CHAPTERS
Sarah Dadush, Daniel Schönfelder & Michaela Streibelt, What the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) Says About Contracts, RCP Policy Brief (July 2024)
Sarah Dadush, Daniel Schönfelder & Bettina Braun, Complying with Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence Legislation through Shared-Responsibility Contracting: The Example of Germany’s Supply Chain Act (LkSG), Contracts for Responsible and Sustainable Supply Chains: Model Contract Clauses, Legal Analysis, and Practical Perspectives, (Susan Maslow & David Snyder eds., ABA Business Law Section, 2023) (Book available here).
Sarah Dadush, Prosocial Contracts: Making Relational Contracts More Relational, 85 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS. 153 (2022) [Symposium issue on Contract in Crisis]
David V. Snyder, Susan A. Maslow & Sarah Dadush, Balancing Buyer and Supplier Responsibilities: Model Contract Clauses to Protect Workers in International Supply chains, Version 2.0, 77 Bus. Law. 115 (Winter 2021-2022). For the entire Model Contract Clauses toolkit, including the Buyer Code of Conduct, click here.
Shmuel Becher & Sarah Dadush, Relationship as Product: Transacting in the Age of Loneliness, U. Ill. L. REV. (2021)
Olivia Windham Stewart & Sarah Dadush, Sharing Responsibility for Human Rights in Contracts, Bloomberg Law (2021)
Sarah Dadush, Contracting for Human Rights: Looking to Version 2.0 of the ABA Model Contract Clauses, 68 AM. U. L. REV. 1519 (2019) [Symposium: New Perspectives: A Discussion on Modern Global Supply Chains] (offers a commentary on the ABA initiative to draft model contract clauses to improve human rights in global supply chains)
Sarah Dadush, The Law of Identity Harm, 96 WASH. U. L. REV. 803 (2019) (operationalizes identity harm in tort, contract, and consumer protection law).
Sarah Dadush, Identity Harm, 89 U. COLO. L. REV. 863 (2018) (introduces "identity harm" as the anguish experienced by consumers who learn that they have been deceived about the virtuous--e.g., eco, fair-trade, conflict-free, Kosher, Made in the USA--attributes of a purchase).
Sarah Dadush, Why You Should Be Unsettled by the Biggest Automotive Settlement in History, 89 U. COLO. L. REV. F. 1 (2018) (discusses the limited precedential value of the Volkswagen emissions scandal settlement for consumers concerned about social-environmental sustainability).
Sarah Dadush, A New Blueprint for Regulating Social Enterprises, Cambridge Handbook of Social Enterprise Law, (Benjamin Means & Joseph Yockey eds., Cambridge University Press, 2018) (introduces the concept of "blueprinting" as the private, market-based analog to legal transplants).
Sarah Dadush, The Internal Challenges of Associational Governance, 111 AJIL UNBOUND 125 (2017) (explains how the internal dynamics of industry associations restrict their governance powers).
Sarah Dadush, Regulating Social Finance: Can Social Stock Exchanges Meet the Challenge?, 37 U. PA. J. INT’L L. 139 (2015) (evaluates the potential for social stock exchanges to effectively social finance and impact investing).
Rutsel S.J. Martha & Sarah Dadush, Going Against the Grain: When Private Rules Shouldn’t Apply to Public Institutions, 9 INT’L ORG. L. REV. 87 (2012) (peer-reviewed) (critiques the adoption of the IFRS standards developed to harmonize businesses’ financial reporting practices by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, an international governmental organization).
Sarah Dadush, Impact Investment Indicators: A Critical Assessment, in Governance by Indicators: Global Power Through Quantification and Rankings (Kevin Davis, Angelina Fisher, Benedict Kingsbury & Sally Engle Merry eds., Oxford University Press, 2012) (discusses the potential and limitations of two new tools for measuring social impact, IRIS and GIIRS).
Sarah Dadush, Profiting in (Red): The Need for Enhanced Transparency in Cause-Related Marketing, N.Y.U. J. INT’L L. & POL. 1269 (2010) (reviews the contractual structure underlying the Product RED campaign and recommends upgrading charities’ law to better regulate cause-related marketing).
Kevin E. Davis & Sarah Dadush, The Privatization of Development Assistance: An Overview, 42 N.Y.U. J. INT’L L. & POL. 1079 (2010) (highlights the legal challenges involved with market-based international development initiatives).
BLOG ENTRIES, REVIEWS, MEDIA
Expert interview for BBC documentary, Perfume's Dark Secret (May 2024)
Podcast guest on Frankly Speaking with Richard Hewitt (April 2024) (Spotify https://spoti.fi/43MWWNo; Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/4cGVXCg; Google Podcasts https://bit.ly/4cEA9Hr)
Jasmin Malik Chua, Mending the Buyer-Supplier Relationship, State of the Industry Report and Safeguarding Supply Chains With Diversified Sourcing Maps and Shipping Strategies, Sourcing Journal (March 2024)
Sophie Bramel, Better Purchasing Practices, Inside Denim (January 2024)
Sarah Murray, So you think you know your supply chain? Financial Times (March 2023)
Podcast guest on The Hearing with Becky Annison and Olivia Windham Stewart (April 2022)
Podcast guest on The ESG Compliance Podcast with Tom Fox and David Snyder (April 2022)
Dan Barnhizer, Soccer Balls Stitched By Tiny Fingers, reviewing Balancing Buyer and Supplier Responsibilities in JOTWELL (January 2022)
Rachel Cernansky, Changing Fashion's Buying Practices: What's to Come for Brands?, Vogue Business (November 2021)
Podcast guest on The New Earth Lawyer Podcast with Geraldine Johns-Putra (October 2021)
Sarah Dadush, Contracting for Human Rights: Using the ABA Working Group's Model Contract Clauses 2.0, (transcript of webinar on Corporate Due Diligence in Contract and Company Law organised by the Nova Centre on Business, Human Rights and the Environment with the support of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union held on March 25, 2021)
Robert Hillman, Business Strategies in the Computer Age, reviewing Relationship as Product in JOTWELL (September 2020)
Marc Bain, Why It's So Hard to Hold Companies Accountable When They Break Their Ethical Promises, Quartz (December 2019)
Marco Jimenez, The Value of Identity, reviewing Identity Harm in JOTWELL (August 2018)
Sarah Dadush, Regulating Social Finance: Can Social Stock Exchanges Meet the Challenge?, Columbia Blue Sky Blog (April 2015)
William Easterly and Laura Freschi, Cui Bono? The murky finances of Project (RED), reviewing Profiting in RED (December 2009)
Sarah Dadush, Sarah Dadush Addresses RED’s Response to Her Paper, (December 2009)