About the Firm
Forum Nobis was started in 2010 to offer legal representation and rights-based strategic consulting directly to Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and community-based rights organizations. Beginning in 2018, the Firm has also offered consulting services to select international non-profits, grant-makers, and public interest-focused organizations (including select carbon project developers and buyers) to help them meet their responsibility to respect human rights. In 2023 we expanded our practice offerings to inclue Teamwork & Conflict Regulation facilitation services and specialty consulting on Technology Risk & Opportunity, Cultural Rights & Self-Determination, and Climate Finance & Just Transition.
We have been fortunate to work with communities in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, whose commitment and ingenuity have perennially inspired us. We have also worked alongside and learned from a range of powerful advocacy organizations and allies, including Amazon Watch, Amnesty International, Greenpeace International, the Environmental Defender Law Center, Global Witness, Pachamama Alliance, Extinction Rebellion, the Civil Liberties Defense Center, the Center for International Environmental Law, the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Justice Initiative, the Centre for International Governance Innovation, The Nature Conservancy, and so many more.
Our work often includes:
Comprehensive human rights due diligence (HRDD) management assistance, including help developing human rights policies, conducting preliminary screenings and targeted human rights impact assessments (HRIAs), risk analysis and mitigation planning, compliance research and advice, leadership and staff trainings, and communications services.
Rightsholder engagement processes, including assistance with high-integrity Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) compliance, in partnership with rightsholders.
Design and implementation of Environmental and Social Safeguards (ESS) frameworks and systems.
Design, implementation, and facilitation of grievance redress mechanisms and conflict resolution, including service as community advocate or ombuds.
Fact-finding, internal investigations, and crisis response, working with staff and local partners as appropriate.
Specialized advice to communities and technologists on human rights impacts of technology and due diligence and compliance issues (privacy, safety, content moderation, access, platform economics, health impacts, government requests), as well as design-stage strategies for integrating a human rights-based approach.
Specialized advice on cultural rights articulation and protection systems.
Specialized advice to communities and institutional/market participants on equity issues in climate finance, carbon market reform, project implementation and integrity standards compliance, and communications issues.
See our full description of our Practices. We are a boutique firm and necessarily very selective about our engagements. Sample work product from previous engagements is available on request. Feel free to Contact Us.
Forum Nobis continues to provide representation to select human right defenders, espcially in exigent circumstances, and to assist communities on a pro bono/low bono basis to formulate, fund, and fight for their self-determined advocacy and policy reform agendas.
Aaron Marr Page
Aaron started Forum Nobis in 2010. He has worked as a human rights lawyer, law professor, and consultant for 20 years.
As a lawyer, Aaron started representing Indigenous and other local affected communities as soon as he left law school. He was a key figure in landmark corporate accountability efforts in Latin America and Africa, and is a recognized expert in human rights litigation in US courts and the Inter-American system. He has helped dozens of communities understand and develop strategies using their substantive and procedural rights under international treaties and frameworks. Before starting Forum Nobis to focus on this work, Aaron practiced law at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP for five years, where he represented sovereign states in international arbitrations, conducted internal investigations, and litigated federal cases involving complex international legal issues. He served as the lead editor of the editor of the International Litigation chapter of the ABA International Law Section’s Year in Review volume for over a decade.
As a law professor, Aaron teaches human rights law at the University of Iowa College of Law and is an instructor and board member of the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights. He teaches courses on foundations of human rights, Business & Human Rights (BHR), and Technology & Human Rights. His scholarship focuses on human rights in supply chains, technology risk and opportunity, environmental rights, carbon markets, climate tech, Indigenous rights/FPIC, Indigenous cultural rights, human rights litigation, and implementation and enforcement issues generally. He previously taught at the Vermont Law School, the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, and the Universidad San Francisco de Quito.
As a consultant, Aaron is a key figure at the nexus of international law, human rights, and environmental/climate efforts. He has helped leading institutions in this space formulate policy, respond to crisis situations, and start embedding human rights concepts and tools into complex organizational structures and practices. He has developed key custom tools to help organizations train leadership and staff, engage rightsholders early in the program development cycle, conduct screenings and assessments in a cost-effective manner, develop risk mitigation strategies, achieve FPIC and due diligence compliance goals, deploy grievance systems and resolve disputes, and develop their operational/supply chain due diligence systems gradually over time.
Aaron also has a long career as a civil rights and criminal defense attorney in the United States. He served as a part-time public defender in the District of Columbia for eight years and continues to provide criminal defense to human rights defenders and protestors in select cases. He has litigated important civil cases in federal court and immigration court on issues of free speech, race discrimination, police brutality, LGBTQ+ rights, asylum/withholding relief, consumer protection, and numerous other statutory and constitutional rights issues.
Aaron received his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School. He was the principal organizer of a ground-breaking 2004 symposium on the development of Indigenous Peoples’ rights in international human rights forums. Before entering the legal profession, Aaron worked for several years as a journalist at leading print, online, and television media outlets, with a focus on the impacts of globalization.
Kanyinke is a renowned Indigenous rights leader and an expert in Indigenous self-determination, economic development, carbon project finance, and Indigenous technology. He was the chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) from 2006-2010, presiding during the finalization and adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which has had a revolutionary impact on the institutionalization of Indigenous rights around the world. Among many other service positions, Kanyinke serves or has served as a board member of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Markets (ICVCM), the Working Group on Indigenous Populations of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and advisory boards academic and non-profit institutions such as Cambridge University Press and Conservation International.
As a law professor, Kanyinke teaches at the Faculty of Law at Egerton University in Kenya. His scholarship focuses on issues of Indigenous economic development, community education and capacity-building, the impacts (positive and negative) of large scale energy projects on communities, and the impacts of technology and climate change generally. He leads efforts to increase mentorship and career development support for Indigenous youth and economically disadvantaged youth in the legal profession and international development finance space. Kanyinke holds a Doctorate in Law from James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona, home of the renowned Indigenous Peoples’ Law and Policy Program.
As a consultant, Dr. Sena has worked on critical projects for institutions and organizations including the World Bank, IFAD, UNREDD, IUCN, CI, The Nature Conservancy, the Kenya Land Alliance, and many others. He is a compelling advocate for community economic development rights, including community-led energy and carbon mitigation projects. He has worked in over 130 countries and lived Africa, Asia and America. At home in Narok County, Kenya, Kanyinke also maintains a profession as a keeper and transporter of livestock and an investor in real estate and tourism.
Kanyinke Sena
Amy Miller is a facilitator, educator, coach, and mediator. Based in New York, she helps individuals and groups address critical issues and practices of teamwork, trust, trust repair, leadership-followership, equity, inclusion, conflict regulation, nervous system and trauma impacts, productive disequilibrium, flow state, somatic practice, artistry, and liberation.
As a facilitator, Amy created and now consults with the Learning & Leadership initiative at Gibney, an internationally renowned dance company and community service organization (CSO). For over a decade she has developed and facilitated workshops and community-based performances, working with CSO leadership and staff, social workers, survivors of gender-based violence, and youth on issues of agency, liberation, witness, and healthy relationships. Amy was also a solo and company dance artist and choreographer with Gibney Company, GroundWorks DanceTheater, the Ohio Ballet, and other companies, for over 30 years.
As a professor, Amy has taught a variety of choreography, facilitation, and personal and career development courses at Bard College, Hunter College, Marymount Manhattan College, NYU Tisch, and Purchase College. She has been an artist-in-residence at institutions including the Amahoro Dance Project (Rwanda), Bates Dance Festival (Maine), Bowling Green State University (Ohio), Brigham Young University (Utah), Brown University (Rhode Island), the University of Cape Town (South Africa), Cleveland State University, DOCH (Sweden), Earl Mosley Institute for the Arts (NYC), Jacksonville University, Kinder HSPVA (Texas), Memphis University, Mimar Sinan University (Türkiye), MUDA Africa (Tanzania), Oberlin College (Ohio), Ohio University, Texas Christian University, The University of Akron (Ohio), The University of Wyoming, Utah Valley University, and Wayne State (Detroit).