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.

Since 2018, Forum Nobis has also worked with select international non-profits, foundations, and strategic benefit corporations to help them meet their responsibility to respect human rights.

We have been fortunate to be able to work with and alongside a very diverse range of organizations and movements, including the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Justice Initiative, the Center for International Environmental Law, The Nature Conservancy, Civil Liberties Defense Center, the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Greenpeace International, Amnesty International, the Environmental Defender Law Center, Amazon Watch, Pachamama Alliance, Extinction Rebellion, Global Witness, and many more. We also work directly with communities across the Americas,
and in Africa and Southeast Asia.

We have a boutique practice and need to be very selective about our engagements. Our Practices include:

  • Human rights due diligence (HRDD) in many forms, including field-based human rights screenings
    or “rapid” assessments, full-scale Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIAs), other forms of risk
    analysis and mitigation planning, and related research, compliance, and communications
    services.

  • Tailored design of HRDD and/or Environmental and Social Safeguards (ESS) risk management
    systems, at the organizational level or on a project-specific basis.

  • Assistance developing and embedding human rights policies, at the organizational level or
    targeting priority issue areas.

  • Assistance designing and conducting Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) processes,
    working alongside Indigenous and local partners.

  • Design and facilitation of grievance mechanisms and conflict resolution systems, at the
    organizational level or on a project-specific basis.

  • Fact-finding, investigations, and other situation management, both public-facing and internal, working with local partners as appropriate.

  • Human rights and civil rights training, education, and capacity-building, especially on HRDD, FPIC, Grievance, the UNDRIP, Indigenous and Local Knowledge protection, human rights mechanisms, and other select issues.

  • Human rights-based legal advice and international legal analysis, depending on jurisdiction and context.

  • In very select cases, legal representation before human rights bodies or in U.S. courts, depending on jurisdiction and context.

Sample work product from previous engagements is available. Feel free to Contact us.

We have a team of Partners available to help us realize projects at scale and/or requiring specialized expertise. We are typically available to lead deliverables or to contribute to an existing internal or externally-led team or coalition.

Forum Nobis does not conduct full validations or verifications of projects for the verified carbon credit market, but can provide targeted assistance to carbon projects on human rights and community issues, and has experience with the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Carbon, Community, and Biodiversity (CCB) Standard.

Forum Nobis continues to provide representation and consulting to local communities on pro bono and low bono basis, and works with communities 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 consultant, lawyer, law professor, and activist for 20 years.

Aaron teaches human rights law at the University of Iowa College of Law and the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights. His courses and publications focus on the history and philosophy of human rights, the rights of Indigenous Peoples, environmental rights, global supply chains, labor movements, corporate legal accountability, the Business & Human Rights framework, technology impacts, and advocacy strategies.  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.

Before starting Forum Nobis, Aaron practiced for several years with the global law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. He  represented sovereign states in international arbitrations brought by multinational investors, assisted internal investigations, and specialized in federal court cases raising international legal issues. He maintained an sizeable pro bono docket while at the firm. He has served as the Year in Review editor of the International Litigation Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section on International Law for over a decade. 

Aaron also served as 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 spent over a decade representing human rights defender Steven Donziger in what is widely recognized as the most egregious “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation” (Protect the Protest) and “misuse of the US justice system” (Amnesty International) in recent times. His private law practice also includes select civil rights cases raising important issues of race discrimination, police brutality, LGBTQ+ rights, refugee and immigration law, and others.

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, Mr. Page worked for several years as a journalist at leading print, online, and television media outlets, with a focus on the impacts of neoliberal globalization. Early in his career, Aaron worked with the South African Human Rights Commission in Cape Town, South Africa; with development finance institutions in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; with Sudanese refugees in Cairo, Egypt; and with communities affected by oil contamination in the Amazon region of Ecuador.

Starting in the mid 2010s, Aaron began focusing on the emerging practice of Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD). HRDD has the potential to transform the practice of human rights and to drive equity, inclusion, and justice in the global economy and the practice of international institutions. Or, it could simply be the new face of “greenwashing.” Aaron is trying to help steer the ship towards potential by promoting the advantages and unpacking the complexities of HRDD-based approaches to both advocates and organizations, teaching and publishing in the field of Business & Human Rights, and contributing to the development of high-integrity work within the field.