scholarly journals The Impact of the UN Guiding Principles on Business Attitudes to Observing Human Rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Peter MUCHLINSKI
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Codes Of Conduct ◽  
Un Global Compact ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Legal Obligations ◽  
Guiding Principles ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Impact

Abstract This contribution discusses business attitudes to human rights obligations and how the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) have affected them. These are best understood historically through a number of periods. The first, between the mid-1970s and the end of the 1980s, coincides with intergovernmental organization-based codifications relevant to corporate social responsibility. Business representatives were highly defensive towards extensive international legal obligations not only in relation to human rights but to corporate social responsibility (CSR) more generally. This was followed by a period of ‘voluntarism’. By the 1990s, businesses had accepted that there could be a link between their operations and human rights violations but continued to reject binding legal duties. Instead, businesses opted for voluntary codes of conduct based on individual corporate, or sectoral, initiatives. It was out of this period that the UN Global Compact emerged. ‘Voluntarism’ continues into the third period, the era of the UNGPs. The UNGPs can be characterized by ‘institutionalized voluntarism’ achieved through the framework for business and human rights represented by the UNGPs. Each period will be examined followed by a concluding section that considers business attitudes to an emerging fourth period that introduces legal obligations through mandatory due diligence laws.

scholarly journals The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implications for Corporate Social Responsibility Research

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Andreas RASCHE ◽  
Sandra WADDOCK
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Un Global Compact ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Institutional Infrastructure ◽  
Guiding Principles ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Corporate Social

Abstract This article presents a review of the literature on the United Nations Guiding Principles (UNGPs) for the purpose of situating the UNGPs in the voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) infrastructure. We identify four key themes that underlie the debate: (1) a critical assessment of the UNGPs, (2) their application to different sectors, (3) a discussion of how to embed key aspects of the UNGPs into national and regional contexts, and (4) reflections on the role of due diligence. We discuss these themes and outline some practical and theoretical take-away messages. Our review highlights some similarities and differences to the discussion of voluntary initiatives in the field of CSR, especially the UN Global Compact. Our discussion helps to understand how the UNGPs are situated in the voluntary institutional infrastructure for CSR. Finally, we show how the theoretical and practical discourse on the UNGPs can be further advanced.

scholarly journals Betting on the Wrong (Trojan) Horse: CSR and the Implementation of the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Florian WETTSTEIN
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Trojan Horse ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Critical Management ◽  
Guiding Principles ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
Full Swing

Abstract Ten years after the publication of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), implementation efforts are in full swing. Companies in particular have used their existing corporate social responsibility (CSR) structures to make sense of and implement Pillar II of the UNGPs. This process has led to a co-optation of the business and human rights (BHR) agenda. One manifestation of such co-optation is the instrumentalization of CSR to confront and undermine the growing trend towards binding BHR legislation. Accordingly, this contribution conceptualizes Pillar II implementation as a process of domestication, co-optation and confrontation of the BHR agenda. It makes sense of this process by juxtaposing it with long-standing critique against CSR put forth particularly by critical management scholars, raising the question whether CSR is indeed well-equipped to drive BHR implementation efforts within companies.

scholarly journals Ground-Breaking? An Empirical Assessment of the Draft Business and Human Rights Treaty

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 179-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tori Loven Kirkebø ◽  
Malcolm Langford
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Empirical Assessment ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
Empirical Methodology

In this essay, we examine empirically whether the revised draft of the business and human rights (BHR) treaty is a normative advance on the existing jungle of global instruments. Since the 1970s, almost one hundred global corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards have been adopted, half of them addressing human rights. See Figure 1 from our global CSR database, below. What is novel about the current treaty-drafting process within the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) is that it aims to develop a comprehensive standard that would hold states legally accountable for regulating business. The question is whether this is possible. Drawing on our work on the “commitment curve,” we begin theoretically and point out why one should hold modest expectations about the process and treat strong text with skepticism as much as celebration. Using an empirical methodology, we then compare the HRC's Revised Draft Legally Binding Instrument (Revised Draft LBI) with existing standards, and find that while the draft contains a healthy dose of incremental pragmatism, its significant advances require a degree of circumspection about its strengths and prospects.

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