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Gwynne Skinner

Human Rights Award

 
 

ICAR and the Gwynne Skinner Human Rights Award Selection Committee are pleased to announce the inaugural recipient of the Gwynne Skinner Human Rights Award, Steve Hitov.

The Gwynne Skinner Human Rights Award recognizes the work of an individual or organization that has made a significant contribution to corporate accountability that year.

Steve Hitov has devoted his career to representing low income clients and has served as a staff attorney, managing attorney, and litigation director in legal services programs in New York, Massachusetts, Florida, and Washington, D.C. Through individual client representation, class action litigation, community development work, and legislative support activity on Capitol Hill, Steve has used his legal training to promote social change. Steve has also been active in clinical legal education, having supervised clinical programs and placements at Harvard University, Western New England College, and the University of Maryland.

Since 1994, Steve has represented the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a human rights organization based in Immokalee, Florida. As General Counsel for the CIW, Steve has negotiated agreements ensuring supply chain accountability with over a dozen of the largest corporate purchasers of produce in the world. He has also negotiated agreements that form the foundation of the Fair Food Program, a unique collaboration among workers, buyers, and growers that works to create a better and more sustainable agricultural industry.

Please see announcement here: 2019 - GS Human Rights Award Announcement

About Gwynne Skinner

Professor Gwynne Skinner was a Professor of Law at Willamette University. Professor Skinner also worked as an ICAR Advisor for over six years, serving as a resource, guide, mentor, and friend to the ICAR team and to our whole community of practice. Her work litigating on the front lines of corporate accountability, producing scholarship, and thought-leadership on access to remedy, parent company accountability, and a range of other issues put her at the forefront of the agenda of business and human rights. 

About the Gwynne Skinner Human Rights Award

The award will be delivered in conjunction with ICAR's Annual Meeting each year and will recognize the work of an individual or organization that has made a significant contribution to corporate accountability that year. 

A Selection Committee of leaders in corporate accountability as well as family members of Gwynne have been appointed to lead in the selection of the recipient.

The Selection Committee includes:

  • Katie Gallagher, Center for Constitutional Rights;

  • Paul Hoffman, Schonbrun Seplow Harris & Hoffman LLP;

  • Amol Mehra, Freedom Fund;

  • Anita Ramasastry, University of Washington School of Law;

  • Beth Skrypzak, Gwynne Skinner's wife.

For more information, please contact Ari Alvarez at ari@icar.ngo.