Michelle Harrison

Background

About Michelle Harrison

Senior attorney leading strategic litigation and legal advocacy strategy centered on corporate and financial institution accountability. Michelle is currently counsel on climate accountability lawsuits against major oil and gas companies, and represents NGOs in a suit against the Export Import Bank of the US for its unlawful financing of a Mozambique LNG project. She has served as counsel on various transnational human rights and environmental civil suits, such as Doe v. Chiquita, a lawsuit against the banana company for financing paramilitary violence in Colombia, and Jam v. International Finance Corporation, which resulted in a 2019 Supreme Court decision establishing that international organizations like the World Bank were not entitled to "absolute immunity" in U.S. courts. She has helped to secure remedies for communities from multinational corporations outside the courtroom, represented advocates and experts in administrative litigation and notice-and-comment rulemaking, and advised advocates, economists, investors and others on legal and regulatory strategy relating to oil and gas corporate disclosures, climate change and financial risk, fossil fuel fiscal policy, and natural resource governance and transparency. Michelle has provided expert testimony and analysis to UN bodies and other international mechanisms on issues of corporate liability, human rights, foreign sovereign and international organization immunity, and international law, among others, and led trainings for foreign lawyers on strategic use of international and foreign law in domestic courts. She has extensive experience supervising attorneys and advocates and managing teams, setting strategic direction, and carrying out general counsel functions.