scholarly journals Collective Responsibility and the Limits of Disclosure in Regulating Global Supply Chains

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 143-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Villiers
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Business ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Company Law ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Labour Exploitation

Global supply chains present major challenges for company law and corporate governance, nationally and internationally. Their increasing relevance in international business has led to a serious regulatory gap, especially in light of corporate involvement in human rights abuses, labour exploitation and environmental degradation. Alongside a number of international norms such as those expressed in the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, there has been a proliferation in domestic and international law of disclosure provisions, mandating greater transparency by companies in response to the problems caused by global supply chains. In this paper, however, it is argued that disclosure is not a sufficient answer to such problems. It is suggested that we should approach the problems with a different conceptualisation of supply chain structures. If we regard them as ‘global poverty chains’, such a perspective brings about a moral response — a recognition that we have a collective responsibility to eradicate the poverty and suffering caused by the chains. This response necessitates that transparency requirements be altered and accompanied by a regulatory framework that empowers victims of poverty to be able to escape it.

scholarly journals Wages: An Overlooked Dimension of Business and Human Rights in Global Supply Chains

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Genevieve LEBARON
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
Living Wages ◽  
Human Rights Abuse ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Wages – the monetary payments that workers receive from employers in exchange for their labour – are widely overlooked in academic and policy debates about human rights and business in global supply chains. They shouldn’t be. Just as living wages can insulate workers from human rights abuse and labour exploitation, wages that hover around or below the poverty line, compounded by illegal practices like wage theft and delayed payment, leave workers vulnerable to severe labour exploitation and human rights abuse. This article draws on data from a study of global tea and cocoa supply chains to explore the impact of wages on one of the most severe human rights abuses experienced in global supply chains, forced labour. Demonstrating that low-wage workers experience high vulnerability to forced labour in global supply chains, it argues that the role of wages in shaping or protecting workers from exploitation needs to be taken far more seriously by scholars and policymakers. When wages are ignored, so too is a crucial tool to protect human rights and heighten business accountability in global supply chains.

scholarly journals Institutional actors as international law-makers in Business and Human Rights: The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and beyond

Pravni zapisi ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 594-617
Author(s):  
Jernej Letnar-Černič
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Business Operations ◽  
Guiding Principles ◽  
Institutional Actors

Business and human rights is an interdisciplinary field, which advocates that both state and businesses are duty-holders of human rights obligations. The area of business and human rights aims to regulate and prevent negative impact of business operations at all levels of global supply chains. The approach of international law in this regard has so far been piecemeal. States have been traditionally a principal participant in the international community. Nonetheless, this article aims to test arguments submitted by Jovanović in his 2019 book "The Nature of International Law" that institutional non-state actors are capable of creating international legal rules. Equipped with this knowledge, this article argues that the UN Human Rights Council has through adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights restated human rights obligations of states and indirectly of corporations in international law in order to protect the dignity of rights-holders in local and global environments

Modern Slavery in Global Supply Chains: Can National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights Close the Governance Gap?

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (02) ◽  
pp. 239-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Bulan HAMPTON
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Action Plans ◽  
Early Assessment ◽  
Polycentric Governance ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Modern Slavery

AbstractFollowing the 2011 endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), states have begun to implement National Action Plans (NAPs) to operationalize the UNGPs. Using a case study approach and applying a conceptual framework for polycentric governance, this article aims to provide an early assessment of the effectiveness of NAPs adopted by the United Kingdom and the United States to combat one of the worst human rights abuses in global supply chains: modern slavery. This study demonstrates that both NAPs contain elements addressing the governance gaps surrounding modern slavery, such as enacting new laws, adapting existing regulations, strengthening multi-stakeholder mechanisms for business accountability, and promoting innovation. However, it is argued that the NAPs themselves were not the catalysts for the majority of these measures. This article concludes that states should optimize the five characteristics of polycentric governance outlined in this study to improve the relevance and effectiveness of NAPs as drivers of change.

Human Rights, Global Supply Chains, and the Role of Tort

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Spitzer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Company Law ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Difficult Question

AbstractThe author examines the difficult question of liability for human rights violations in global supply chains. After informing about the implications of the international aspect of such lawsuits, he analyses major concepts of liability in supply chains – clearly separating company law and tort law approaches from each other – and exemplifies the application of these concepts in current cases.

Business and human rights: The challenge of putting principles into practice and regulating global supply chains

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Business And Human Rights

This article examines a company’s responsibility to respect human rights, focusing in particular on corporate global supply chains. While global supply chains have long been associated with a range of human rights violations, a number of recent legislative initiatives both in Australia and elsewhere are applying traditional corporate concepts – such as due diligence and reporting – in a human rights framework, to ensure companies respect human rights wherever they operate.

Can Multinational Corporations be responsible for human rights violation of its outsourcee company? Response of national or international law?

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-179
Author(s):  
Alessandro Suppa ◽  
Pavel Bureš
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
International Economy ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Original Question ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Human Rights Violation

SummaryNowadays, an important role in the world is played by Multinational Corporations (MNCs). They hire, produce, and influence the international economy, but also, they exploit, pollute. Their business activities might have a worldwide effect on human lives. The question of the responsibility of MNCs has drawn the attention of many scholars, mainly from the study field labelled “Business and Human Rights”. The present paper does not examine the topic under the same approach. The authors aim at presenting the issue in a broader perspective, exploring the concept of due diligence both in international and corporate law. In this paper, authors strategically use the uniformity of national legislations as a possible and alternative solution to the issue. They are aware of three fundamental factors: 1) the definition of MNCs needs to be as clear as possible, so to avoid any degree of uncertainty; 2) the outsourcing phenomenon interacts with that definition; 3) in case of no possibility to include outsourcing in the definition of MNC, the original question arises in a significant way.

Corporate Liability Design for Human Rights Abuses: Individual and Entity Liability for Due Diligence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Corporate Liability ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence ◽  
Individual Human

Abstract In this article, I critically review the economic theory of corporate liability design, focusing on the allocation of liability between a corporation and its individual human agents. I apply this theory to transnational commercial contexts where human rights abuses occur and assess the likely efficacy of some putative liability regimes, including regimes requiring corporations to undertake human rights due diligence throughout their global supply chains. I advance a set of general considerations justifying the efficacy of due diligence in relation to alternative liability regimes. I argue, however, that due diligence regimes will likely under-deter severe human rights abuses unless they are supported by substantial entity-level sanctions and, in at least some cases, by supplementary liability for individual executives. The analysis has significant policy implications for current national and international efforts to enforce human rights norms against corporations.

Contributory Fault under International Law: A Gateway for Human Rights in ISDS?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farouk El-Hosseny ◽  
Patrick Devine
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Multinational Enterprises ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Investment Treaty ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Government ◽  
Bear Creek ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract The intersection between foreign investment and human rights is gaining attention, as is evident from an increasing number of investment treaty awards analysing legal issues relating to human rights. In the recent International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration of Bear Creek v Peru, Philippe Sands QC posited, in a dissenting opinion, that the investor’s contribution to events—ie protests against its allegedly adverse environmental impact and disregard of indigenous rights, namely resulting from its ‘inability to obtain a “social licence”’—which led to the unlawful expropriation of its investment, was ‘significant and material’. He further noted that the investor’s ‘responsibilities are no less than those of the government’ and found that damages should thus be reduced. Last year, the Netherlands adopted a new model bilateral investment treaty (BIT), which allows tribunals to ‘take into account non-compliance by the investor with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises’ when assessing damages. These recent developments shed light on how states and tribunals, as part of their decision-making process, can take into account human rights in practice, and crucially in respect of damages analyses. By first dissecting the concept of contributory fault, then shedding light on the intersection of investment treaty law and human rights, as elucidated in recent jurisprudence, this article questions whether there now exists a gateway for human rights obligations (soft or hard) in the investment treaty arbitration realm through the concept of contributory fault.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document