The Business of Human Rights

In 2002, almost ten years before the U.N. approved of the Guiding Principles, Beth Stephens, a Professor of Law at Rutgers-Camden, penned an essay that is extremely beneficial in providing a framework for holding TNC’s accountable and understanding their motivation. In her essay, The Amorality of Profit: Transnational Corporations and Human Rights, Stephens does a nice job of establishing that corporations’ violation of human rights is not just a recent development. By looking at the role corporations have played in previous atrocities, such as the Holocaust, Stephens establishes the importance of providing remedies in a timely fashion. According to Stephens, if a remedy is not provided immediately, it is easy to lose site of the impact the initial violation had on humanity. For example, it is hard to grasp the impact that corporations had on the holocaust because so much time has elapsed. It is known that corporations provided equipment to help Nazi Germany monitor citizens, in addition to providing drugs, which were used in the experimentation on human lives. Further, there were banking corporations, which profited from the accounts that went unclaimed. By looking at one example, it is easy to see how difficult it would be to fully grasp the impact corporations can have on human rights.

Businesses are made to increase profits. When decisions are made regarding businesses, the sole goal is to maximize profit with little regard to the effect that might have on human rights or the environment. Justification for this maximizing profits approach can be found in Safire’s claims that “the primary social responsibilities of a corporation are to serve its owners by returning a profit and its community by paying taxes; to earn the allegiance of customers by delivering value, and to provide a secure future for employees who help it succeed in the marketplace.”

Stephens goes on to reiterate that many corporations have grown to a level of economic power, which often supersedes that of most nation-states. With the vast power, corporations often chose to set up shop in locations where governments are not strong enough to monitor the corporate actions.

In short, this article a prescient look at many of the issues that would dominate the business and human rights agenda now and in years to come. I would highly suggest that folks interested in the subject take some time to review it. The article can be found here.

There’s been a few major developments with government entities in the mining sector in the past few weeks.

In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission released guidance regarding its position on conflict mineral disclosures under the Dodd-Frank Act.

The FAQs for that are available here.

On Wednesday, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed to sign on the G8 initiative that is “aimed at improving corporate transparency and cracking down on international corruption in the mining and oil and gas sectors.” The new reporting requirements will seek to bring Canada more in line with other G8 countries.

Our study abroad program returned from Brazil on Wednesday. The three-week program was a success. As usual, I also learned a tremendous amount. For instance, one of things I learned on this trip was that Brazil has recently implemented the “Brazil without Misery Plan.” The plan is designed to reduce poverty and increase opportunity for the extreme poor in Brazil. You can find out more information about the plan here. There’s a lot I could say about the plan but I’m still recovering from the strains of international travel. Suffice it to say that a plan like this can go a long way to satisfying a State’s duty to Protect under the Respect Framework. It’s something I’d like to explore more in my scholarship.

The students and faculty from UVV and WVU pose together as they kick off the colloquy.