Voices - Conversations on Business and Human Rights from Around the World

Mariam Memarsadeghi is co-founder and co-director of the E-Collaborative for Civic Education, running the Tavaana and TavaanaTech projects.

Helani Galpaya is the chief executive at LIRNEasia, a think tank that works across Asia-Pacific, believing that markets can work to help the poor. She has focused on the delivery of electricity and govt. services for urban poor and small entrepreneurs.

Can humanitarian aid and economics mix? Are there lessons from the way the humanitarian aid sector operates that business can learn from? Are there business skills and techniques that the humanitarian sector should adopt, so that it is more effective?

Neill Wilkins, Project Manager: Migrant Workers and Work With Dignity, speaks to Lara White, Senior Labour Migration Specialist at IOM in Geneva, Switzerland.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently published a report which highlights the risks of reprisals human rights defenders face when they oppose projects financed by the World Bank.

The creation of the BRICS Bank has drawn the attention of not only international financial institutions and governments, but also international civil society.

Thousands of Rohingya and Bangladeshi refugees are stranded in the Andaman Sea, victims of human trafficking. Countries in the region - Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia - are unwilling to let them enter their territory.

Colin Jackson is a champion athlete who has been an Olympic silver medalist for Britain, and has been the world champion in 110m hurdles thrice, and held the world record for the race for over a decade.

Rayyan Hassan is a Bangladeshi development expert based in the Philippines, who is the executive director of the NGO Forum at the Manila-based multilateral financial institution, Asian Development Bank.

Baone Twala is a candidate attorney at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), a human rights organisation and law clinic based at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Hiroshi Ishida is the executive director at the Caux Round Table Japan, a non-for-profit think-tank and network that promotes social responsibility and sustainability among businesses.

In January, Indian officials at Delhi airport prevented Priya Pillai, a campaigner at Greenpeace India, from boarding a flight to London, where she was invited to speak to an All-Party Parliamentary Group in the UK about a controversial coal-mining projec

Bill Browder is an investor whose London-based firm Hermitage Capital Management was an early investor in Russia and was highly profitable. Over time, Browder led campaigns for greater transparency in financial statements of Russian companies.

Alex Budden is the Vice-President of External Relations at Africa Oil Corp which is a Canadian oil and gas company with assets in Kenya and Ethiopia as well as Puntland (Somalia) through its 45% equity interest in Horn Petroleum Corporation.

Dr Christof Heyns is Special Rapporteur of the United Nations on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. He is Professor of Human Rights Law and Co-director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa...

Linda Piirto is a Senior Advisor in CSR at the Finnish Ministry of Employment and Economy, where she oversaw the preparation of Finland's National Action Plan. In 2012 she coordinated the work producing the Finnish government's CSR Action Plan.

Ikal Angelei is the Director of Friends of Lake Turkana, a civil society group in Northern Kenya, in an area where companies are prospecting for oil. Oil exploration in the region will have major implications for the communities along the project sites.

Chris Jochnick is the Director of the Private Sector Department at Oxfam America. He has worked for two decades on issues of human rights, development and corporate accountability.

Sadaf Saaz Siddiqi is a director at Sidko Limited, a Bangladeshi garment exporter. She is also one of Bangladesh's leading poets in English. Her recent publication, Sari Reams, offers a poignant glimpse of Bangladesh's life, covering a range of topics.

Javier Moro is co-author of "Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World's Deadliest Industrial Disaster".

Dr V Suresh is a human rights lawyer who is the national general secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), one of India's major human rights organisations.

Usha Ramanathan lives in New Delhi, India, where she works on the jurisprudence of law, poverty and rights.

The Bangladeshi activist Nazma Akter started working at a garment factory in 1984 at the age of 11. Three years later, she protested against the conditions garment workers faced.

Ma Thida is a writer, human rights activist, physician, and a former political prisoner in Myanmar. She has received numerous international human rights awards and Amnesty International adopted her as a prisoner of conscience.

Sara Hossain is a leading human rights lawyer in Bangladesh. She is a barrister practising in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh on constitutional, public interest, and family matters.