Achieving Access to Justice in a Business and Human Rights Context

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) can contribute to economic prosperity and social development in the countries where they operate. At the same time, their activities may directly or indirectly cause harm to humans and to the environment. However, MNEs are rarely held accountable for their involvement in human rights abuses and environmental damage. In recent years, activists have challenged corporate impunity by introducing innovative claims seeking to hold parent companies directly liable for the harm caused by their group’s activities. They have also strategically used this type of litigation to trigger corporate accountability reforms at international, regional, and national levels. Using national litigation experiences as a starting point and focusing on European civil-law countries, the book evaluates the extent to which litigation against MNEs has been effective in achieving access to justice and corporate accountability. It also considers whether ongoing regulatory developments, such as the adoption of mandatory human rights due diligence norms and the negotiations for a business and human rights treaty, can contribute to the realisation of access to justice and corporate accountability in the future.

Contours of National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights in Central and Eastern Europe

Central and Eastern Europe has been often overseen in the debates on business and humanrights. Countries in the regions share a common history, experience and culture. Human rights andfundamental freedoms were in the past systematically and generally violated. Since democratisation,countries have suffered from a wide range of related human rights abuses. Corporations in theregions have often directly and indirectly interfered with the human rights of employees and thewider communities. Business and human rights has in the past lagged behind global developmentsalso in the light of the lack of capacity and general deficient human rights situation. This articledescribes and discusses contours of the National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights of theCzech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine and Slovenia by examining their strengths anddeficiencies. It argues that the field of business and human rights in Central and Eastern Europe hasmade a step forward in the last decade since the adoption of the United Nations Guiding Principleson Business and Human Rights. Nonetheless, human rights should be further translated into practiceto effectively protect human dignity of rights-holders.

Moltmann’s theology in dialogue with liberation theologians revives the role of Black Theology in democratic South Africa

The theme for Liberation Theology has always been about concerns for the marginalised masses and socio-political liberation for the economically disadvantaged. Its mandate is to seek to guide towards the discovery of being human without references to historical divisions between the haves and have-nots created by socio-economic imbalances promoted by political regimes. Moltmann’s content of theology, its revision, its innovation rather than the theological method has marked his restless imagination. His method of exploration in doing theology has brought him into dialogue with philosophers and theologians of different persuasions. In this study, he is evaluated in his dialogue with the liberation theologians. The focus is on Moltmann’s theological approach to ecumenism, built around the Kingdom of God concept, and ecclesiastical analysis and political theology. These three areas are the transitional arguments on how Moltmann enters into dialogue with the liberation theologians. The argument moves on to point how Liberation Theology has exerted itself as Black Theology in South Africa during the apartheid time. Black Theology is a theology of liberation because of its resistance and endeavours of eradication of all forms of oppressive systems. The two injustices (socio-cultural misnomers) in the democratic South Africa are discussed as a calling for Black Theology’s voice. These are corruption and human rights abuses. Black Theology brings religion into the secular world as a way of aborting all forms of discrimination based on race, sex and economic class.Contribution: Black Theology is invited to revisit Moltmann’s ecumenical, ecclesiastical and political theological understanding, as a way of reviving itself back to the centre stage of prophetic role within the corrupt and human rights and dignity abuse society.

The Necessity for Revisiting Direct Corporate Human Rights Obligations in the Current Business and Human Rights Treaty Process

The international community has awoken to the reality that transnational corporations (TNCs) do not only control more resources than a good number of states. They wield enormous influence in the corporate world which greatly impacts on local cultures and initiatives. Many of these TNCs, who operate in developing states, engage in activities which frequently result in human rights abuses. Several states rely on the resources extracted by these large corporations as the main stay of their economies. Consequently, they lack the economic capacity and political will to effectively regulate the activities of the TNCs, leaving these entities to perpetrate human rights abuses in the local communities with impunity. Although the Human Rights Council, through the Inter-governmental working group on Business and Human Rights, has begun a treaty process on business and human rights to address these issues, the work of the IGWG, so far, has not adequately responded the root cause of the corporate impunity, which is their unwillingness and inability to hold corporate entities accountable for their harmful activities. Thus, this paper proposes that the issue of direct human rights obligations on corporate entities should be revisited in order to ensure that corporate entities do not escape accountability for human rights harm resulting from their activities.

Cambodia’s Hun Sen faces resistance to succession plan

Significance He said Hun Manet would have to be elected to the post. The next general election is due in 2023. Hun Manet is currently deputy commander-in-chief of the armed forces and part of the main decision-making body of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), which holds all 125 seats in parliament. Impacts A potential denial of US tariff benefits over alleged human rights abuses would be damaging to exports. Concerns over the viability of the garment industry could prompt an anti-government backlash from low-income workers. Beijing may increasingly prefer to give financial support through loans rather than aid and investment.

Response to Leaf et al., 2021

In this commentary, we respond to a recent article published by Leaf and colleagues (2021), entitled “Concerns About ABA-Based Intervention: An Evaluation and Recommendations”. In their article, the authors attempt to address concerns raised by autistic people about ABA-based interventions. We argue that they only superficially engage with these important issues, and fall short of supporting neurodiversity, despite their intention to do so. We discuss issues related to biased claims of effectiveness of ABA, the potential for ABA-based interventions to cause harm, the reliance on past human rights abuses to justify current potential for harm, a lack of empirical support related to intervention intensity recommended by ABA provider groups, and the rigidity of procedures used to achieve therapist-determined goals.

Crime, Security, and Illegal Wildlife Trade: Political Ecologies of International Conservation

This article takes a political ecology approach to understanding the integration of conservation with security in tackling the illegal wildlife trade. It builds on political ecology debates on militarization by connecting it to the dynamics of global environmental politics, specifically the discursive and material support from donors, governments, and conservation nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The combined effects of a highly competitive funding environment and security concerns of governments has produced a context in which NGOs strategically invoke the idea of the illegal wildlife trade as a security threat. For donors and governments, tackling the illegal wildlife trade is a means through which they can address security threats. However, this has material outcomes for marginalized peoples living with wildlife, including militarization, human rights abuses, enhanced surveillance, and law enforcement.

The Need for a New Paradigm in International Law to Provide International Protection

Too little is provided, not only in international law, but also by the United Nations, for victims around the world. This article therefore argues that a new paradigm is needed. It uses the conflict in Syria since 2011, specifically focusing on how enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions have been used, to examine these questions. It has been reported that at least 150,000 people have been affected by these practices, but the number may be as high as a million. Because the state has used these practices methodically, they amount to a widespread and systemic attack on the civilian population and, therefore, to crimes against humanity. While the Syrian regime is primarily responsible, non-state actors have also been committing these types of crimes. The article discusses the general processes that have been set up to deal with the conflict in international law and by the United Nations in places like Syria. It finds that very little has been done to end the conflict in Syria, other than mediation. The article then reviews the international processes dealing with disappearances and detentions in Syria that families can report to, and the role these institutions have played so far. It again finds that very little has been achieved. The article also examines other countries where processes have been set up to deal with missing and disappeared persons, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, and Georgia, to learn the lessons from these past processes for the Syrian situation. It is argued that, generally when mass atrocities occur, the UN on rare occasions will create an accountability process, but never creates a process that focuses on the needs of victims: finding their loved ones, getting them released from custody if they are alive, or finding the truth about what happened to them and where their remains are. The article therefore argues that a new mechanism is needed for Syria (but also for other places) to get people released, and to find information on others whose whereabouts are unknown due to the conflict and/or the mass human rights abuses. It contends that the mechanism could be set up by the UN, and if not, by a regional actor such as the European Union, or by several states. It is reasoned that the mechanism ought to have a Board made up of a representative each from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID), the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions (WGAD) and a Syrian organisation, elected each year.

Fast Fashion for 2030: Using the Pattern of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to Cut a More Gender-Just Fashion Sector

The 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza in Bangladesh brought global visibility to the human rights abuses experienced by women workers in the garment sector. As the spotlight on this incident dims, the need to hold the fashion sector accountable remains. In this article, we suggest that greater accountability could be achieved through the application of a human rights-informed understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to promote gender justice in the sector. By drawing on international women’s rights law and sustainable fashion, we demonstrate how sustainability and gender justice are intimately connected, and illustrate what role the SDGs can play in promoting sustainable outcomes that are gender-just. The article unpacks concepts such as sustainability, the circular economy, social responsibility, and ethical fashion, and places the experiences of women workers within this context. Its principal contribution is a set of six requirements to ensure a gender perspective to the fashion industry’s role in implementing the SDGs.