4. Canadian Perspectives on the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights in Africa: Assessing the Legitimacy of Multistakeholder Initiatives in the Extractive Sectors

From Voluntary to Obligatory

10.1093/oso/9780199941483.003.0007 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 259-324

Author(s):

Erika George

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Self Regulation ◽

Business Practices ◽

Social License To Operate ◽

Social License ◽

Regulation Strategies ◽

Multistakeholder Initiatives ◽

Human Rights Standards ◽

Industry Sectors ◽

Rights Issues

This chapter examines what corporations say they are doing to address human rights risks presented by particular business practices in particular contexts. It offers an overview of the different strategies being used by transnational business enterprises to respond to concerns expressed by investors, consumers, and affected communities. Among the self-regulation strategies used by businesses examined are participation in multistakeholder initiatives designed to address human rights issues, human rights impact assessments, audits and certifications, supply chain contract provisions, and corporate responses to ratings and reports by concerned stakeholder constituencies. The chapter presents the findings of a discourse analysis of codes created by competing corporations in selected industry sectors assessing over time the extent to which codes incorporate reference to human rights standards and refer to emerging self-regulation strategies. Corporate responses to allegations of complicity in abuse are analyzed. The chapter argues that the discursive frame asserted by corporate responsibility incorporating rights increasingly treats voluntary norms as obligatory to maintaining a “social license” to operate.

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The Information Regulation of Business Actors

AJIL Unbound ◽

10.1017/aju.2017.31 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 111 ◽

pp. 130-133

Author(s):

Kishanthi Parella

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Legal Order ◽

International Organization ◽

Legal Norms ◽

Business And Human Rights ◽

Rainforest Alliance ◽

Persuasive Power ◽

Multistakeholder Initiatives ◽

Industry Associations

A transnational legal order (TLO) is emerging regarding the role of businesses in respecting human rights. This legal order includes multistakeholder initiatives, international organization recommendations and guidelines, NGO certifications, and other voluntary instruments. Many of the norms within this TLO are nonbinding and therefore lack mandatory compliance; what they may possess is persuasive power, particularly when the norms are developed, endorsed, and managed by reputable organizations. It is that reputational, or legitimacy, advantage that matters for encouraging industry associations to comply with the nonbinding norms associated with these organizations. Industry associations and other business actors will gravitate more towards legitimacy enhancing organizations when their own legitimacy is at stake. They pivot towards public organizations such as the United Nations or private NGO initiatives like the Rainforest Alliance, seeking to associate themselves publicly with these organizations that enjoy more perceived legitimacy. These business relationships with legitimizing bodies can take the form of partnerships, certifications, or other arrangements where an industry association adopts and incorporates nonbinding norms when it otherwise might not. In this essay, I discuss three transnational legal processes that encourage industry associations, their members, and other business actors to abide by nonbinding transnational legal norms concerning business and human rights.

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Human Rights Conflicts and the Creation of Corporate Responsibility Collaborations

10.1093/oso/9780199941483.003.0004 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 105-144

Author(s):

Erika George

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Transnational Corporations ◽

The Right To Privacy ◽

Regulatory Instruments ◽

The Creation ◽

Governance Institutions ◽

Multistakeholder Initiatives ◽

The Right ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

This chapter provides comparative accounts of the creation of industry sector–specific regulatory instruments and governance institutions arising from allegations of corporate complicity in human rights abuses after conflicts with concerned constituencies and affected communities. The selected case studies demonstrate that there are consequences for conduct inconsistent with social expectations for business. The chapter considers cases originating in emerging market economies and complex operating environments, comparing the advocacy strategies of human rights activists and corporate responses. Cases studied include: the controversial role of transnational corporations in the internet communications technology sector in censorship and surveillance practices and the risks presented to the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy; the relationship of transnational corporations in the pharmaceutical sector to human rights and the risks presented to the right to health and the right to life when access to essential medicines is compromised; and the relationship of transnational corporations in the extractives sector to human rights and the risks presented to human security when extractive sector companies contract with security forces that abuse violent force and use deadly force to silence dissent. The chapter explains how conflicts over corporate complicity in alleged abuses served to catalyze the creation of the different industry-specific multistakeholder initiatives, including: the Global Network Initiative, a private multistakeholder project to promote more responsible business practices; the Accelerating Access Initiative, a global public-private partnership to increase access to affordable medicines and create change; and the Voluntary Principles on Security, a tripartite multistakeholder initiative to address security and human rights. This chapter will show that crisis appears to serve as a catalyst for change.

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Corporate Voluntarism and Human Rights

Relations industrielles ◽

10.7202/009129ar ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 59 (1) ◽

pp. 101-141 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Penelope Simons

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Transnational Corporations ◽

Human Rights Violations ◽

Intergovernmental Organizations ◽

Public Concern ◽

Conflict Zones ◽

Regulatory Regimes ◽

Multistakeholder Initiatives

In response to increasing public concern over the accountability of transnational corporations (TNCs) for violations of human rights in the states in which they operate, governments, corporations and NGOs have promoted the development and implementation of voluntary self-regulatory regimes. However, TNC practices under these regimes call into question their adequacy and effectiveness in preventing complicity in egregious violations of human rights by corporations operating in conflict zones and repressive regimes. This article reviews and assesses the language, human rights content and compliance mechanisms of the voluntary policies and/or codes developed by a number of corporations, industry groups, intergovernmental organizations and multistakeholder initiatives, as well as associated corporate practices. The analysis shows that these voluntary regimes are flawed and inadequate, and therefore unable to ensure that TNCs are not complicit in human rights violations in their extra-territorial activities.

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