Pels Rijcken & Droogleever Fortuijn NV

Martijn Scheltema has been working at Pels Rijcken since 1997 and is a specialist in the cassation practice before the Supreme Court. Mainly acting on behalf of government institutions, he handles cases in the area of private law in relation to the public sector, which includes questions relating to unlawful government acts and government contracting. He regularly publishes and teaches in these fields. In addition, he handles cases concerning commercial disputes and has extensive experience with international dispute resolution through arbitration. He is also interested in other forms of dispute resolution, particularly with respect to corporate social responsibility.

Furthermore Martijn is a respected authority in the field of BHR, national as well as international. Next to advising clients on the issue, he was co-founder of a project which has resulted in the establishment of ACCESS (an international organization advertising and facilitating non judicial mechanisms in the BHR field, www.accessfacility.org) in 2012. He has been board member of ACCESS until October 2015. Because of his experience in this area he has been appointed as the chair of the independent binding dispute resolution mechanism of the Dutch CSR Garment industry agreement (concluded between garment retailers, the government and NGOs). He currently also is chair of the CSR committee of the IBA (this committee is dedicated to BHR) and a member of the business and human rights project of the American Bar Association. He also is member of the Community of Practice of the European Commission on self- and co-regulation, amongst others involving BHR self- and co-regulation.

He also holds scientific appointments in this area, as a professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam and part of an international interdisciplinary research team in the BHR arena. Furthermore, he is member of the steering committee of the international academic network of MSI Integrity (chairing a track on effectiveness of multi-stakeholder initiatives) and of the OECD academic network of the Working Party on Responsible Business Conduct.

He frequently speaks at international conferences and participates in panels. For example, he has organized, participated in or moderated panels at the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva and at the IBA annual conferences for several consecutive years.