Embodiment of Our National Commitment to Protect Human Rights or Damp Squib? An Assessment of Corporate Accountability Under the UK Government's National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Chambers
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Corporate Accountability ◽  
National Action Plan ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
The Uk

A Decade of UNGPs in India: Progressive Policy Shifts, Contested Implementation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Vasanthi SRINIVASAN ◽  
Parvathy VENKATACHALAM
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
National Guidelines ◽  
Effective Implementation ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Policy Shift ◽  
Social Environmental ◽  
Progressive Policy ◽  
Policy Shifts

Abstract The decade of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) coincides with India’s National Voluntary Guidelines on businesses’ social, environmental, and economic responsibilities (NVGs) and the National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC) – an updated version of the NVGs. Human rights are one of the core principles in both guidelines and they draw upon the ‘Protect–Respect–Remedy’ framework of the UNGPs. The NVGs and NGRBC go beyond the UNGPs by requiring organizations not only to respect human rights, but also to promote them in their spheres of influence. Several factors, however, derailed the implementation of this progressive policy shift. This article explores the challenges in implementation and calls for the multiple actors involved to work together and shape a collaborative action plan for effective implementation of the NGRBC in the next decade. The authors reiterate the need for alternative lenses to frame the responsible business agenda within developing countries through positive obligations.

scholarly journals Business and Human Rights in ASEAN: Lessons from the Palm Oil Sector in Malaysia

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Andika AB. Wahab
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Palm Oil ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Member States ◽  
Oil Companies ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Asean Member ◽  
Guiding Principles

The release of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 aims to address gaps in human rights governance by setting a standard and corporate culture of respecting human rights. As part of the state responsibility to implement these guiding principles, some member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have already embarked preliminary steps towards establishing their respective National Action Plan on Business and Human rights (NAPBHR), while others are still lag behind. This article describes current development on business and human rights in the region. Drawing from the palm oil sector’s experience in Malaysia, this study aims to provide lessons for ASEAN member states to contemplate when developing their NAPBHR. In this article, I argue that while some large palm oil companies have shown modest progress in realizing their human rights obligation, challenges emerge in many forms including the lack of leadership, collaboration and ambition to steer and scale up industry transformation on human rights across supply chain. Equally important, challenges around certification scheme depict that it is not the only solution in persuading respect to human rights. Meaningful values transfer often overlooked in certification practice resulting in typical "ticking the audit box" exercise without understanding principles behind it. As such, the development of NAPBHR among the ASEAN member states should reflect on these reality and challenges.

Promoting Business and Human Rights Education: Lessons from Colombia, Ukraine and Pakistan

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Anthony EWING
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Business Case ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Corporate Accountability ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Training Programmes ◽  
University Settings

Business and human rights (BHR) has been taught as an academic discipline and field of practice for thirty years.1 Since the first courses at business schools, law schools, and schools of public policy in North America and Western Europe, BHR curricula have proliferated worldwide. BHR course content has expanded to include new international standards, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs); tools for corporate accountability; 2 and examples from the growing body of corporate BHR practice. BHR pedagogy has evolved to embrace multidisciplinary teaching techniques, from business case studies to legal drafting exercises and experiential role plays.3 BHR teaching is taking place in every region, from Africa and Asia to the Middle East and Latin America. Over 350 individuals teach the subject in some form at more than 200 institutions in 45 countries.4 More than 100 universities have added BHR courses to their curricula in the past decade alone. BHR is also taught outside traditional university settings in dedicated workshops and training programmes for professionals, academics and students.5

Developing a National Plan of Action on Violence against Women and Gender Violence

2019 ◽  
pp. 362-378
Author(s):  
Caroline Bettinger-López
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Sex Discrimination ◽  
Gender Violence ◽  
National Plan ◽  
National Action Plan ◽  
Violence Against Women Act ◽  
State And Local ◽  
And Gender

International human rights treaties and monitoring bodies have repeatedly called upon governments to develop national plans of action to eliminate violence against women. Although the U.S. is a global leader in the violence against women arena, it has never developed a national plan of action. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), despite its substantial contributions, does not contain some of the core features of a national action plan—such as a strategic vision for ending violence against women, or a declaration that violence against women is a human rights violation and a form of sex discrimination, or a set of goals or benchmarks to measure progress. This chapter examines the key elements of national action plans on violence against women, and ultimately argues that in the Trump era, a national action plan can best be developed through coordinated action at the state and local levels.

The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Business and Human Rights Treaty Negotiations

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Bernaz ◽  
Irene Pietropaoli
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Corporate Accountability ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Treaty Negotiations ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIn June 2014, the UN Human Rights Council established an intergovernmental working group to elaborate a treaty on business and human rights. In July 2015, the working group held its first session launching the negotiations process—the culmination of a global movement of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that over the last four decades have called for greater corporate accountability for human rights violations. The advocacy activities of the Treaty Alliance, an alliance of NGOs that supports the development of the treaty, were pivotal to the tabling of the resolution establishing the working group. These organizations now have the opportunity to engage with the negotiations process, both formally and informally, through consultations, advocacy, and lobbying. This article considers the impact NGOs may have in the drafting negotiations of the proposed treaty. It identifies several lobbying and advocacy strategies that were successful in previous international law-making processes and discusses the extent to which they could be applied to the current negotiations. It presents the benefits of an NGO coalition, of formal and informal lobbying strategies, and of the development of a common NGOs and friendly states framework. It analyses the reasons for Western states’ opposition and suggests lobbying strategies that may overcome it. Recognizing the unique subject matter of this treaty, it also focuses on lobbying corporate actors, and explores the complementarity between the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the treaty and the need for NGOs to support both. The article concludes on the necessity to compromise on essential points if a treaty is ever to emerge.

scholarly journals Human rights, accounting, and the dialectic of equality and inequality

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 568-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingru Li ◽  
John McKernan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Corporate Accountability ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Guiding Principles

Purpose – The United Nations Guiding Principles locate human rights at the centre of the corporate social responsibility agenda and provide a substantial platform for the development of business and human rights policy and practice. The initiative gives opportunity and focus for the rethinking and reconfiguration of corporate accountability for human rights. It also presents a threat: the danger, as we see it, is that the Guiding Principles are interpreted and implemented in an uncritical way, on a “humanitarian” model of imposed expertise. The critical and radical democratic communities have tended to be, perhaps rightly, suspicious of rights talk and sceptical of any suggestion that rights and the discourse of human rights can play a progressive role. The purpose of this paper is to explore these issues from a radical perspective. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses insights taken from Jacques Rancière’s work to argue that there is vital critical potential in human rights. There is an obvious negativity to Rancière’s thought insofar as it conceives of the political as a challenge to the existing social order. The positive dimension to his work, which has its origins in his commitment to and tireless affirmation of the fact of equality, is equally important, if perhaps less obvious. Together the negative and positive moments provide a dynamic conception of human rights and a dialectical view of the relation between human rights and the social order, which enables us to overcome much of the criticism levelled at human rights by certain theorists. Findings – Rancière’s conception of the political puts human rights inscriptions, and the traces of equality they carry, at the heart of progressive politics. The authors close the paper with a discussion of the role that accounting for human rights can play in such a democratic politics, and by urging, on that basis, the critical accounting community to cautiously embrace the opportunity presented by the Guiding Principles. Originality/value – This paper has some novelty in its application of Rancière’s thinking on political theory to the problems of critical accounting and in particular the critical potential of accounting and human rights. The paper makes a theoretical contribution to a critical understanding of the relationship between accounting, human rights, and democracy.

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