One of the press releases cited from 2010 discussed abuse and exploitations of workers. The editor who was cite checking the article made a note to exclude the press release as not relevant to the subject of my article. Now, a legitimate reason for excluding the release could be that the press release calls for the State (and not the Saudi employer) to take action for the women’s brutalization. Since the release once again focuses on State behavior, I could see how some would question the fit. However, that was not the focus of the editor’s comment. Instead, the editor wrote the following: “Please clarify: this incident involves labor laws that foster abuse and exploitation rather than corporate human rights abuses.” Unfortunately, this view – that labor law abuses and business and human rights abuses are separate issues – is actually pretty common. It’s also incredibly inaccurate.
The Difference Between Corporate Social Responsibility and Business and Human Rights
When I first entered the academy, I realized (thanks to my wonderful LL.M. adviser, Karen Engle) that where I could be most useful is in researching the intersection between corporations and human rights. Prof. Engle pointed out that my corporate and financial background as a former S.E.C. attorney gave me some knowledge on corporations and corporate governance that many human rights attorneys or academics might not have. Jumping on this, I began to develop my scholarship in this area.
Over five years later, I still find that what I do and what I write about is hard for many people to classify. There are scholars with corporate backgrounds similar to mine who write on issues that impact the larger stakeholder community rather than issues that simply affect corporations and their shareholders. They write on issues such as environmental impact, human rights or labor issues, and their scholarship is typically categorized as corporate social responsibility work. While I have nothing but respect for the people who work and write in this area, it is not at all what I do. I write about business and human rights – particularly Transnational Corporations and their responsibility for human rights. most often, I think about corporate accountability structures for human rights violations. Nonetheless, when discussing my work with other academics, I am often mislabeled as aCSR expert.
Intuitively, I knew there was a distinction between what I was doing and the great work of the people engaged in CSR research, but until last year, I could not articulate that distinction. Then last July, in connection with a piece I was writing on the U.N.’s history with business and human rights, I came across a definition that succinctly articulates the difference.
According to Chris Avery the founder and director of he Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and an international lawyer, “A CSR approach tends to be top-down: a company decides what issues it wishes to address. Perhaps contributing to community education, healthcare or the arts or donating to disaster relief abroad or taking steps to encourage staff diversity or reduce pollution. These voluntary initiatives should be welcomed. But a human rights approach is different. It is not top-down, but bottom-up – with the individual at the centre, not the corporation. When it comes to human rights, companies do not get to pick and choose from a smorgasbord those issues with which they feel comfortable.”
Why this Blog?
The business and human rights landscape has changed tremendously over the last ten years. Traditionally, public international law has been focused on state behavior. The idea of corporations being duty bearers for human rights abuses was originally discussed (and put into a formal resolution by the U.N. Sub Commission) in 2003. However, it was incredibly controversial and quickly defeated. Then, in 2004, Kofi Annan appointed John Ruggie at Harvard to act as a Special Representative on these issues.
Ruggie, after receiving input from businesses, human rights advocates, states and other stakeholders, crafted in 2008 a framework for understanding business and human rights. The Framework rests on three pillars – a State’s duty to protect, a Corporation’s duty to Respect and the role of both in Remedying human rights violations should they occur. The Respect Framework as it relates to corporations, places no legal responsibility on them. However, using the non-legal sense of the word, the Framework articulates aspirational goals that a corporation should follow to respect human rights.
This concept of business and human rights was further institutionalized in June 2011 when the UN human rights council unanimously adopted a set of Guiding Principles to help businesses operationalize this Framework.
Despite their non-binding mandate on corporations, the Respect Framework and the Guiding Principles have the potential to revolutionalize the “business of human rights.” The U.N.’s resolution marks the first time that the idea of corporate responsibility for human rights issues has been explicitly endorsed by the U.N.
