Related Papers
Re-righting Business-John Ruggie and the Struggle to Develop International Human Rights Standards for Transnational Firms,
susan aaronson, Ian G Higham
As the major players in globalization, firms often operate in states where human rights may not be respected. Without direct intent, firms may be complicit in human rights violations. In 2008, John Ruggie, the UN Special Representative on business and human rights, developed a framework for policymakers to protect human rights and executives to respect human rights. On 16 June 2011, the UN Human Rights Council endorsed Ruggie’s ‘Guiding Principles’ for implementing this framework. This article describes have firms, states, and to a lesser extent NGOs, have responded to this delineation of the human rights responsibilities of business. We make four key points: the Guiding Principles are an important advance in global governance; the process of developing the Guiding Principles was a model of transparent, inclusive 21st century governance yet the public is generally unaware of the issue or the new policy; that the Guiding Principles are a creative and broad rethinking of how to evaluate the human rights performance of corporations; and that the Guiding Principles are unlikely to have much influence unless policymakers educate their home firms regarding their human rights responsibilities, and press these executives to act.
Normativity, Ethics, and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: A Critical Assessment
2015 •
Florian Wettstein
This article critically assesses the work of the UN Special Representative for Business and Human Rights (SRSG) John Ruggie. The article adopts a normative perspective on the issue. Thus, its critique is derived from the standpoint of ethics. The SRSG was instrumental in shifting the burden of proof to those who deny corporate human rights responsibilities. This achievement, however, is relativized by the very restrictive interpretation of such responsibilities, both in terms of their scope as well as the normative force assigned to them. Finally, the article explores and analyzes the SRSG’s relative reluctance to address and engage with ethical categories more explicitly. It outlines the dangers and blind spots that may result from this reluctance and reflects on the role that ethics can, and perhaps should, play in the broader debate on business and human rights.
University of Oxford Human Rights Hub Journal
Any Act, Any Harm, To Anyone: The Transformative Potential of Human Rights Impacts Under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
2019 •
David Birchall
The concept of ‘adverse human rights impacts’ introduced by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is frequently used in institutional, activist and scholarly discourse. However, the term is under-explored and usually equated with ‘human rights violation’, occluding its transformative potential. This article demonstrates its expansiveness and rationale: ‘impacts’ cover any business act which removes or reduces an individual’s enjoyment of human rights. The formula is designed to capture business acts that are not paradigmatically understood as human rights violations but that nonetheless cause harmful outcomes. This can encompass, inter alia, acts which reduce market access to essential goods, harm caused by business-related tax abuse, and business contributions to climate change. The extra-legal concept provides an authoritative argumentative framework through which social understandings of business-related harm can evolve and can underlie a transformative shift in the business-society relationship.
Revista Estudios Juridicos Segunda Epoca
The United Nations Mandate on Business and Human Rights: Future Lines of Action
2013 •
Carmen Márquez-Carrasco
Business and Human Rights: Emerging Challenges to Consensus and Coherence
Jolyon Ford
James Summers and Alex Gough (eds) Non-State Actors and International Obligations: Creation, Evolution and Enforcement (Brill 2018), 224-260
The Business and Human Rights Regime under International Law: Remedy without Law?
2018 •
Ioana Cismas
Deakin Law Review
The UN 'Norms on the Responsibility of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights': A Requiem
2012 •
Professor Sascha-Dominik Dov Bachmann
On 11 June 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council endorsed the ‘Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights’ as a new set of guiding principles for global business designed to provide a global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse impacts on human rights linked to business activity. This outcome was preceded by an earlier unsuccessful attempt by a Sub-Commission of the UN Commission on Human Rights to win approval for a set of binding corporate human rights norms, the so called ‘Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights’. This article identifies and discusses the reasons why the Norms eventually failed to win approval by the then UN Commission on Human Rights. This discussion assists an understanding of the difficulties in establishing binding ‘hard law’ obligations for transnational corporations with regard to human rights within the wider framework of international law. It...
SSRN Electronic Journal
Review of the Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises, Professor John Ruggie to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human...
2000 •
Olufemi Amao
Philosophy of Management
Business and Human Rights, from Theory to Practice and Law to Morality: Taking a Philosophical Look at the Proposed UN Treaty
2020 •
Ana-Maria Pascal
Australian Journal of Human Rights
The future of business and human rights: theoretical and practical considerations for a UN treaty
2018 •
Fabien MARCHADIER
