scholarly journals Business and Human Rights: Key Issues for Legal Theory

Author(s):  
Olena Uvarova

Just like the fight against discrimination or other injustice in its time, the sphere ofbusiness and human rights goes through the same stages: the experience of injustice is accumulated –a demand for release from the problem is formed, a demand for a more perfect reality – a requestfor new regulation arises.The article discusses the key issues for the theory of law, conditioned by the formation of thisnew reality. The starting point for consideration is the question of business as a direct addressee ofhuman rights requirements, that is, the operation of human rights without mediation by the state,since one of the defining reasons for the emergence of public expectations, embodied in the conceptof business and human rights, was the inability or in some cases of deliberate unwillingness of thestate to ensure corporate respect for human rights. This, in turn, raises the question of the powerinfluence of business on human rights and the need to revise the concept according to which privateactors in their relations are equal. The imperious nature of the influence of business also means thatthere is a revision of the social contract, the parties to which were previously considered society andthe state, and therefore the need to legitimize such power of business, substantive and procedural. Even in a situation where the state exercises effective control over the business operations, therequirement of legitimation is relevant, since there is a space free from state legal regulation. Objectively,the state cannot (and should not) regulate all aspects of the functioning of economic entities; thespace for self-regulation always remains. Business, by understanding its internal processes, is betterable to identify risks to human rights and minimize them. The state can only react to the violationof human rights that has occurred.The demand for business to fulfill its human rights obligations is particularly heightened ina situation where government control over its activities is absent or ineffective. Such situations arepossible in the case of a weak nature of state power or its inconsistent policy in the field of humanrights (in particular, investment projects may not be assessed by the state in terms of their impacton human rights) or in a situation of an undemocratic political regime, when the state itself violateshuman rights. and business is directly or indirectly involved in such violations. It is also possible thatthe state does not have sufficient leverage over business. Transnational corporations are a classicexample of this situation. The lack of effective state control can also be explained by the oligarchicstructure of the economy.Accordingly, the concept of business and human rights, being a response to modern challenges of“unfair social experience”, forces us to reconsider the classical views on the addressees of human rightsdemands, the mechanism of operation of the rule of law, the requirements of which should applyto private actors and, in general, to reconsider the social contract taking into account the significantimpact that business has on the organization of life in modern society.

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Dadang Suprijatna

Human rights as a barometer of the law in its formation is to see from the social phenomena that grow and develop in society that gave birth to social contract. Society is understood as the unity of separate individuals who build a personal bond before the emergence of society itself. The state's form of responsibility to its people is to create opportunities for people to gain their rights, as a form of contribution to the people as legitimate owners. The State can no longer ignore any form of any popular will, it is a Right that must be protected and gained great influence from other societies, including the international community globally, which can ultimately affect and / or become a barometer of globalization. Globalization is portrayed as increasing interconnection and social interdependence, politics, economy, law and culture of society behavior, but globalization has also resulted in diminishing the virtue of nation state even an important phenomenon that can not be avoided by anyone, any nation and any country, including Society, nation and state of Indonesia. For that it is fitting for the people and the Indonesian nation to be wary of the growth and development of Globalization that can damage the Mission of Pancasila as the Reject Measure the life of nation and state.


2020 ◽  
Vol 93 (4) ◽  
pp. 161-169
Author(s):  
I. I. Chesnitskiy ◽  

The article presents an analysis of the state and problems of implementing the socio-economic rights of population of the Khabarovsk territory as a priority area for reducing poverty. Attention of the authorities was drawn to the situation of poverty in a number of northern municipalities, where the population is experiencing difficulties in realizing their socio-economic rights due to the lack of jobs. Concern was expressed about the socio-economic rights of persons released from the places of deprivation of liberty. The Commissioner for human rights in the Khabarovsk territory, taking into account the study of situation in the region, sets out his vision for solving the problem of reducing poverty in the Khabarovsk territory and makes proposals that, in his opinion, can be used by the regional state authorities to achieve the indicators set by the President of the Russian Federation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID LUBAN

AbstractMilitary and humanitarian lawyers approach the laws of war in different ways. For military lawyers, the starting point is military necessity, and the reigning assumption is that legal regulation of war must accommodate military necessity. For humanitarian lawyers, the starting point is human dignity and human rights. The result is two interpretive communities that systematically disagree not only over the meaning of particular law-of-war norms, but also over the sources and methods of law that could be used to resolve the disagreements. That raises the question whether military lawyers’ advice should acknowledge any validity to the contrary views of the ‘humanitarian’ community. The article offers a systematic analysis of the concept of military necessity, showing that civilian interests must figure in assessing military necessity itself. Even on its own terms, the military version of the law of war should seek to accommodate the civilian perspectives featured in the humanitarian version.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 433-449
Author(s):  
Surya Deva

Abstract COVID-19 has affected the full range of human rights, though some rights holders have experienced a disproportionate impact. This has triggered debate about the respective obligations and responsibilities of states and business enterprises under international human rights law. Against this backdrop, this article examines critically whether the “protect, respect and remedy” framework operationalised by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is “fit for the purpose” to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. I argue that while the UNGPs’ framework provides a good starting point, it is inadequate to bring transformative changes to overcome deep-rooted socio-economic problems exposed by this pandemic. Realising human rights fully would not only require harnessing the potential of states’ tripartite obligations, but also move beyond limiting the responsibility of businesses to respect human rights.


Author(s):  
Sergey A. Kalinin

The reсonsidering of the methodological foundations of modern theoretical jurisprudence includes both the search for new approaches and the identification of the limits and conditions for their adequacy. At the same time, the needs for studying the interaction of the value-worldoutlook nature and the spatial conditionality of the state and law, considered in the logic of an open system, correspond with the geocultural approach. This approach is based on the multi-valued category “geoculture”, that allows one to comprehend the cultural codes and meanings of the transformation of reality and space (world projects), including those that exist as ideas about ideal forms of public power and social regulation. The geocultural approach may be part of such methodological phenomena as the worldoutlook research program, world-system analysis and geomeasurement. At the present stage, the geocultural approach of the worldoutlook research program is most suitable for analyzing the conflict of geocultures, allowing to take into account the replacement of geocultural standards, the crisis of the modern capita list world economy, legitimized by liberal geoculture, and the search for new mo dels of world order, carried out in the framework of the conflict of liberal and traditional values. The importance of understanding this conflict is due to the critical attitude of liberalism towards traditional statehood, its fulfillment of the role of an instrument of “controlled chaos” and an instrument of dominance of the West. The reсonsidering of liberal geoculture is permissible on the basis of the doctrines of traditional religious faiths, among which the Russian Orthodox Church is dominant in the post-Soviet space. Liberal geoculture is a multidimensional phenomenon, which at the same time puts forward the idea of protecting human rights and freedoms, and is an instrument for implementation of an elitist policy, characterized by excessive criticality in relation to the state and government, as well as any categories reflecting collective soli darity. Moreover, human rights, which are an integral part of liberal geoculture, initially stem from the Christian idea of a man as an ontologically free human being, the image and likeness of God, whose status metaphysically extends to anyone, but only his own. Substantially there are three interdependent problems in the phenomenon of human rights, the answer to which predetermines the practice of legal regulation: who is a person (in a particular geoculture), who is recognized as the ontological subject of human rights violations, who is recognized as the relevant subject of human rights protection. The complexity of the attitude of traditional Christianity to human rights, including denial (due to historical reasons for using human rights to marginalize Christianity), understanding, and recognition, is confirmed by the historical practice of the Russian Orthodox Church, which positively interprets this phenomenon in its conceptual documents at the present stage. The foregoing makes it expedient to use the canonical positions and official documents of traditional religious faiths in lawmaking and lawenforcement practice, which are the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches for Belarus.


Author(s):  
Mykhailo Shumylo

The social doctrine of the Catholic Church is an indication of the active involvement of the Church in disseminating the ideas ofthe welfare state and it reflects its attempts to establish ideals of the welfare state through an external influence on the ideology of countriesthat belong to Christendom.Furthermore, one cannot ignore the fact that encyclicals had a direct or indirect influence on the adoption of the first social protectionacts in Catholic Europe where encyclicals played an important role.As a result, the Holy See aligned itself with the labour movement.Considering the fact that papal encyclicals covered the entire Catholic World, these documents can be viewed as an example ofinternational soft law.The first social rights, principles, and values in the area of social protection were enshrined in the encyclicals.Social rights belong to second-generation human rights the legal basis for which comprises international instruments adoptedafter the Second World War (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the Convention for the Protection of Human Rightsand Fundamental Freedoms (1950), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), the European SocialCharter (Revised) (1965–1996), the European Code of Social Security (1964), meaning 50 years after these rights were enshrined inpapal encyclicals.There is an indisputable fact that has still not been discussed in scientific research on social protection and according to whichthe social doctrine of the Catholic Church can be viewed as an inherent part of the process of occurrence, formation, and developmentof social protection, and it can be regarded as an ideological framework, a source of social rights and principles of social protection.Considering the above-mentioned findings, the social doctrine of the Catholic Church can be defined as the body of legislationadopted by the Holy See regarding the status and development of social and labour rights, their place in a person’s life and in publiclife. Papal encyclicals form the basis of that legislation and they are addressed to believers, bishops, and archbishops.


2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-138
Author(s):  
Т. П. Голопич ◽  
І. М. Голопич

Legal aspects of the social regulator of contractual relations in labor law of Ukraine have been revealed. The concept of social partnership and social dialogue as a legal regulatory mechanism of collective relations has been studied. Legal regulation of labor conditions at different levels, through agreements, reflecting the will and interests of the parties to the agreement, has been analyzed. It has been found out that the personal nature of work, the definition of the specific labor function, duration of working time, remuneration of labor, etc., shall be reflected in a contractual relationship, which requires new forms of relationship between a state, an employer and an employee. Such new forms are acts of social partnership representing the interests of employees, employers, and the state in general. Special attention in this process has been paid to the collective agreement, wherein the interests of the labor collective and the employer are reconciled. The significance of the collective agreement is enhanced in the context of the market economy transformation and the development of new forms of management. Based on international experience it has been proved that problems of economic and public life are addressed optimally, if the orientation is implemented not towards the confrontation, but towards the achievement of social compliance, adjustment of social partnership on the principles of cooperation between employers and employees, which are realized in forms of negotiations, the conclusion of collective agreements and collective arrangements, coordination of draft regulatory and legislative acts and consultation in decision-making by social partners at all levels. It has been defined that social partnership is implemented by means of social dialogue, as a set of coordination procedures of interests of association of employees, employers and the state. Social dialogue helps to provide social harmony and stability in the society, it addresses diverse social and economic problems; it is the universal mean of collective relations for each country, it takes into account its traditions and particularities, and it is based on the significant practical experience of real cooperation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Marzena Myślińska

<p>The subject of this article is the analysis of the activity undertaken during mediation in the context of the characteristics of the mediation process and the normative conditions of the legal relationship and disputes resolved through this form of ADR. In order to implement the project, the content of the work will contain a list of functions performed by the mediator during mediation as ‘the environment for performing the role’ (which is not closed due to the dynamics of interaction in the negotiations). Their character and content determine the nature of the social and professional role of mediators in the Polish legal order, it also allows us to illustrate in detail the key issues for reflection on the professional role, including, for example, legal liability and conflict of roles. Mediation functions are diversified in terms of the frequency of their implementation depending, among other things, on the strategy of conducting mediation, the specificity of the dispute and the legal regulation of mediation. The discussion of the last of the indicated differentiating factors (i.e. the impact of universally binding law) will be reflected in the content of the paper.</p>


Author(s):  
Zoe Beenstock

Coleridge wrote frequently about Rousseau throughout his varied career. His early lectures and letters draw on Rousseau’s critique of luxury and frequently allude to the general will, depicting Rousseau as a Christ-like figure. Coleridge’s subsequent disappointment with Pantisocracy led him to reject Rousseau and the social contract. Comparing Rousseau to Luther in The Friend, Coleridge argues that Rousseau’s unhappiness arises from a conflict between an age of individualism and an ongoing need for community. According to Coleridge, poetry tolerates this conflict better than philosophy. In ‘Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement’ Coleridge suggests that social retreat offers illusory solace from war and social crisis. He critiques the state of nature, sympathy, and even religion for failing to balance the self with its environment. Thematically and formally The Rime of the Ancient Mariner explores this crisis in cohering systems. Through the mariner’s relationship to the albatross, the wedding that frames the poem, and episodes of the supernatural that disrupt the ballad form, Coleridge defines a breaking point between the individual and general wills.


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