Penelope Simons

Penelope Simons is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law (Common Law Section) at the University of Ottawa. Her research focuses on business and human rights and in particular on the human rights implications of domestic and transnational extractive sector activity; state responsibility for corporate complicity in human rights violations; the regulation of transnational corporations; gender and resource extraction; and the intersections between transnational corporate activity, human rights, and international economic law. She is the co-author with Audrey Macklin of the University of Toronto of The Governance Gap: Extractive Industries, Human Rights, and the Home State Advantage (Routledge, 2014). She also co-authored Integrating Sustainable Development into International Investment Agreements: A Guide for Developing Country Negotiators (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2013) with Tony VanDuzer and Graham Mayeda. Penelope is a member of the Human Rights Research and Education Centre, the Interdisciplinary Research Group on the Territories of Extractivism, and the Centre for Environmental Law and Global Sustainability, all at the University of Ottawa, as well as the SSHRC-funded Canadian Partnership on Strengthening Justice for International Crimes. In 2018, Penelope was awarded the Walter S Tarnopolsky Award, recognizing her as “an individual who has made a significant contribution to human rights.”