UN FORUM SERIES – whistleblowing: a powerful tool to monitor human rights compliance

This post was contributed by Arnaud Poitevin, a business and human rights expert, PhD Candidate in international law at CNRS and lecturer in law at Université Sorbonne Paris Cité. Whistleblowers are individuals who disclose information about illicit activities and/or behaviour harmful to the public interest, facing the risk of serious retaliations. The case of Edward Snowden is well-known to everyone. Bradley Birkenfeld and Stéphanie Gibaud exposed illicit tax evasion schemes by major banks in the US and Europe respectively.