Ancora Institute — Business and Human Rights

An independent research institute
at the frontier of
business and human rights

We produce independent research and rigorous knowledge, build strategic partnerships and contribute to placing the most relevant debates on business and human rights at the heart of corporate, regulatory and public policy decision-making. We are a space for research, dialogue and advocacy oriented towards bringing the most decisive questions on business and human rights to where decisions are made.

Think Tank Research Speaking
Our research agenda Speaking
⚓

"The companies that will lead tomorrow are those that understand what no algorithm can replace"

Ancora Institute

About

01

Rethinking the relationship between business, strategy and human rights

Ancora Institute was founded on a conviction tested over more than twenty-five years and five continents: that human rights are not an external constraint imposed on business, but a constitutive dimension of its strategy, culture and legitimacy.

The contemporary corporate environment faces unprecedented challenges: the expansion of global value chains, the emergence of technologies with direct impact on fundamental rights — from algorithmic systems to decentralised finance —, rapidly evolving regulatory frameworks, and growing pressure from investors, communities and international institutions. Ancora Institute exists to produce the research, conceptual frameworks and applied knowledge that help organisations understand, anticipate and translate into action their commitments on human rights.

María Hernández-Pérez

Founder & Director

María Hernández-Pérez is an international lawyer, researcher and expert in Business and Human Rights with more than 25 years of experience. Her profile is singular: she combines extensive experience in the corporate world — as a legal and compliance executive in NYSE-listed multinationals — and in leading international law firms, with a solid academic career at top international institutions and a deep commitment to developing global normative frameworks on human rights applied to business.

She has advised large corporations from within and from leading international law firms, operating across multiple jurisdictions in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia. She has directed the LLM in Global Corporate Compliance at IE University in collaboration with New York University, has been Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School and has participated as an expert in international forums including B20-G20.

She is an elected member of the Anti-Corruption and Integrity Taskforce and the Special Initiative on Women's Empowerment of the B20-G20, of the Committee of Women Leaders of the Americas — an initiative of the Organisation of American States and the Fundación Ciencias de la Documentación — and leads the Human Rights and Business Working Group of the Instituto de Oficiales de Cumplimiento (IOC).

From that triple position — corporate practice, academia and international advocacy — she founds Ancora Institute: an independent space for research and standard development to help companies integrate human rights into their strategy, operations and value chains.

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25+
Years of experience
5
Continents
∞
Intercultural perspective

Research

02

Research, strategic thinking
and applied knowledge

Our mission is to produce independent research and strategic thinking that strengthens the dialogue between business, human rights and corporate culture, bringing applied knowledge and strategic reflection to the terrain of business practice and public policy.

Research Area I
Human Rights Due Diligence and Regulatory Frameworks

We analyse the evolution of the international normative framework — from the UN Guiding Principles to the CS3D and OECD standards — and its effective translation into business practice. Our work is oriented towards making that framework — complex and rapidly evolving — comprehensible and actionable for the organisations that must apply it.

Research Area II
Emerging Risks: Technology, Digital Finance and Human Rights

We examine the impact of emerging technologies on human rights in business contexts: algorithmic systems and discrimination, automated workforce management, decentralised finance and crypto-assets, and AI as a vector of transnational risk. A rapidly expanding field where regulation lags behind reality and where rigorous analysis has immediate strategic value for businesses, regulators and international institutions.

Research Area III
Corporate Culture, Leadership and Effective Human Rights Integration

We investigate what separates organisations that genuinely integrate human rights into their strategy from those that stop at formal compliance — and how the intersectionality of factors such as gender, origin or vulnerability shapes the real risks that companies frequently fail to see. Our work helps identify those risks and build the internal culture that makes an effective corporate response possible, not merely documented.

Publications

03

Research Notes
and Case Analysis

Applied knowledge produced by Ancora Institute: case analyses, regulatory briefings and research notes translating frontier developments in Business & Human Rights into actionable insight for practitioners, policymakers and institutions.

Case Analysis · Research Areas I and III

"Social Washing" in Supply Chains: The Levi's Case in the Netherlands

An analysis of the lawsuit filed in April 2026 by the Clean Clothes Campaign foundation before the Dutch courts against Levi Strauss over alleged social washing practices. The case illustrates how the gap between public communications and documented reality in the supply chain has become a cause of legal action in Europe, regardless of a company's size or ESG reputation.

Read the full note →
19 June 2026
Case Analysis · Research Area I

Human Rights Governance and the Microsoft "Azure for Surveillance" Case

A case analysis of the challenges of corporate human rights governance in conflict-affected areas, drawing on the independent investigation commissioned by Microsoft. The case illustrates the gap between the design of internal normative frameworks and their real-world effectiveness in high-risk environments.

Read the full note →
June 11, 2026

Partnerships

04

Building the institutional future
of Business and Human Rights

Ancora Institute develops institutional partnerships with universities, international organisations, professional associations and civil society bodies — collaborating to build the research, educational and professional capacity that the field of Business and Human Rights requires.

I.
Academic Institutions

Research partnerships, joint publications, executive education and curriculum development with law schools, business schools and research centres at the frontier of Business and Human Rights.

II.
International Organisations

Collaboration with intergovernmental bodies, UN institutions and multilateral frameworks committed to developing international standards and good practices in corporate responsibility.

III.
Professional and Civil Society Bodies

We work with sectoral associations, specialist networks and civil society organisations to strengthen capacity in Business and Human Rights through research, applied training and continuing professional development.

Commitments

05

Institutional commitments

Ancora Institute formalises its values through commitments to the international frameworks and initiatives that set the standard for responsible business conduct. These commitments are not statements of intent: they are operating principles that guide our research, our partnerships and our work with organisations and public policymakers.

Ancora Institute — HeForShe Company for Change

UN Women · Since May 2026

HeForShe — Company for Change

Ancora Institute is a signatory of HeForShe, the global solidarity movement for gender equality driven by UN Women. As a Company for Change, we have made a formal commitment to adopt concrete and measurable actions to advance gender equality within our institution and through our work — starting from the recognition that gender equality is not exclusively a women's issue, but a human rights matter that requires the involvement of all actors in society, including the business and research communities.

This commitment is coherent with our research mandate: Ancora Institute's work at the intersection of business strategy and human rights necessarily addresses gender as a structural dimension of corporate responsibility — from intersectionality in human rights due diligence to the role of leadership culture in embedding substantive equality.

heforshe.org →

Speaking

05

Keynotes
and speaking engagements

Academic and executive participation in international conferences, governance spaces and leadership programmes, in English and Spanish.

i.
Beyond AI: Human Values as Competitive Advantage
A keynote for executives, boards and organisations navigating an era of accelerated technological change. As artificial intelligence transforms the technical core of business, what remains — and becomes irreplaceable — is the human dimension. This session challenges audiences to rethink where their true value lies.
Signature Keynote
ii.
Beyond Regulation: Human Rights at the New Frontier of Corporate Risk
For boards, executive committees and risk committees. The regulatory landscape is changing rapidly — but the deeper transformation is cultural. This session maps the emerging frontier and what it means for companies that want to lead, not follow.
Board Level
iii.
The Intercultural Dimension of Ethics: Navigating Cultural Complexity in Organisations
Drawing on 25 years operating across different cultures, this session explores why ethics and values manifest differently across cultural identities — and why understanding this is essential for building ethics and human rights programmes that genuinely work in practice.
Intercultural

Ancora Institute participates in international conferences, panels, governance spaces and executive programmes on Business and Human Rights, strategic ethics and corporate culture. Each engagement is designed around context and audience.

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Activity

07

Keynotes and academic engagements

A record of keynote addresses, panel participations and academic presence at conferences, professional forums and leading institutions.

VI Congreso Internacional de Compliance

Instituto de Oficiales de Cumplimiento (IOC) · Madrid

María Hernández-Pérez, Founder & Director, Ancora Institute for Business & Human Rights

“Compliance, human rights and supply chain”

I Jornada sobre Derechos Humanos, Compliance, ESG y Empresa

Ilustre Colegio de la Abogacía de Madrid (ICAM) · Madrid

María Hernández-Pérez, Founder & Director, Ancora Institute for Business & Human Rights

“Human rights and business: emerging risks and responsibilities”

Advisory

06
Strategic Collaborations

Advisory
services

Anchored in our research mission, Ancora Institute takes on a limited number of high-level advisory engagements for organisations navigating the intersection of human rights, corporate culture and business strategy.

Advisory work is selective and grounded in the same conceptual frameworks and rigour that drive our research — it is not a separate service line, but an extension of our intellectual work into practice.

Strategic Guidance for Boards and Leadership

High-level counsel to boards and senior management teams seeking to understand the strategic implications of Business and Human Rights — translating Ancora Institute's findings and frameworks into decisions organisations can act on.

Organisational Ethics and Culture

Working with organisations to understand and develop the human and cultural dimensions of their ethics programmes — the dimension that no regulation can mandate and no technology can replicate.

Contact

Let us start a
conversation

Ancora Institute maintains a limited number of institutional, academic and strategic collaborations each year. To explore possible research partnerships, speaking engagements or institutional collaborations, please contact the Institute using the form below.