This Special Edition blog post is to remind all my faithful readers (thanks mom!) that WVU’s Business and Human Rights Conference is only five days away. It all begins on Monday September 23rd. There is still time to register but the deadline (Friday morning) is fast approaching. Please visit the website here for all of the information including: a draft agenda, a list of participants and my thoughts on why this conference is so important.
I hope to see all of you there.
The story, which broke at the end of June, told of Mr. Starnes being imprisoned by his workers – who feared that the American born Starnes was going to close down the factory, making them jobless.
The workers did not let Mr. Starnes leave until he provided them with a compensation and severance package.
I have no words for this … or rather, I have plenty of words but they need time to percolate. In the meantime, I would love to hear from those of you who have watched this story. Do you think this is an example of effective negotiations? Or just vigilante justice gone awry? And what does this say about business and human rights issues?
For full coverage of the story please see here.
A recent court decision in Colorado highlights what may be just the beginning of a new set of hurdles for energy companies.
A family in Colorado filed suit after a hydraulic fracturing system was installed on their neighbor’s property. The family claims that, since the system was installed, their property value has decreased, their water has been contaminated, and they’ve incurred skin rashes and headaches. Recently, Colorado’s Court of Appeals overturned a dismissal by a lower court, allowing the family’s case to move forward in the litigation process. You can read the full opinion here.
Although the ruling establishes no binding precedent outside of Colorado, given how widespread hydraulic fracturing has become across the country, it will be something that plaintiffs’ attorneys will keep an eye on in the event that they are handed similar issues.
I am pleased to announce that we have secured a keynote speaker for our upcoming business and human rights conference. Bill Richardson will be speaking the evening of September 23rd as part of the David C. Hardesty Jr. Festival of Ideas Speaker Series. His talk will be at 7:30 p.m. at the Erickson Alumni Center in Morgantown, WV. Bill Richardson has served as a governor of New Mexico, the head of the Department of Energy and as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Given the depth and breadth of his experience, we believe he is perfectly suited to close our first night of the conference.
For more information about the conference please visit our website here.
For more information on Bill Richardson, please visit his website here.
Photo taken from billrichardson.com
I promised a follow up post a while back about how I might distinguish between what is a “business and human rights issue” and what is a “human rights issue that happens to intersect with the business world.” At this point, I want to add again my disclaimer that my research is linked to business law, and not human rights law, so to the extent I am using loose language or am otherwise off in my descriptions, I beg patience and forgiveness at the outset.
In my prior post, I explained that
I would draw a distinction between a “business and human rights” issue and human rights issues that happen to intersect with the business world. These latter issues are not less significant than business and human rights issues. Instead, they are broader human rights issues that are not unique to businesses or how they operate on a global stage.
I recognize the risk that narrowing the scope can marginalize, or at least minimize, concerns about the issue raised. On the flip side, though, one can go in the other direction by being over inclusive and convert business and human rights issues into what amounts to issues related to the human condition. A holistic view has its merits, but I am of the view that narrowing the field to more business-specific concerns is more likely to lead to significant improvements in the nearer term.
Perhaps more to the point, I believe that an overly broad definition of what constitutes business and human rights issues runs the risk of asking businesses to solve problems that they cannot. That is, that the solutions necessary to solve the problem raised are not reasonably linked to businesses or regulations related to businesses (as businesses).
Unfortunately, there is no blog post today. We’ve been busy working on WVU’s upcoming business and human rights conference. Stay tuned in the coming week for some incredible news about a keynote speaker and future plans.
In the meantime, enjoy your week-end …
Quick, we’re going to do a random (and completely unscientific) experiment. Ready?
What did your mind flash on? Was it the issue of torture? Discrimination? The right to vote?
How many of you thought about the right to justice?
(Looks around at the silent room).
So the SEC has had an eventful July for business and human rights related issues.
First, on July 2nd, the Commission was dealt a blow when Judge John Bates, of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, struck down the SEC’s rule requiring corporate disclosure of “payments made to foreign governments in connection with the commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals.” The rule was promulgated under Congressional discretion to prevent the Resource Curse that befalls many developing countries. The Court ruled that the Commission incorrectly found that the requisite Congressional statute was unambiguous regarding what the SEC was required to do, and as a result, vacated the rule and remanded to the SEC for further proceedings.
Nonetheless, on July 23rd, the SEC pulled out (what one commentator called ) called a “rare victory” in federal court, when Judge Robert Wilkins (also of the US District Court for DC) held that the SECcould require companies to disclose whether their products are manufactured with “conflict minerals” from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country with an abysmal human rights record that is specifically linked to the mining of gold, tin, tantalum and tungsten.
An article posted on the website for The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights addresses the tasks that still need to be completed prior to the quickly approaching target date for the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals. The Millennium Development Goals were designed in 2000 to reduce poverty and hunger, promote education and gender equality, in addition to improving health and global partnership for development.
The MDG are important because they keep human rights issues at the forefront of the agenda while nonetheless promoting global development. By giving a voice to the marginalized, the MDG seek to ensure that the goals they set to achieve are the most beneficial to the individuals most in need of assistance.
According to the article, the post-2015 agenda should be framed in terms of human rights, which might require that it take precedence over economic growth. From a human rights perspective, this approach can be seen as progress. Keep an eye on the blog for more on accountability and the post-2015 human rights agenda.
You can read the full news release here.
I am pleased to announce that registration for WVU’s 2013 Business and Human Rights Conference is now open!
To register, please visit our website. The link is here. That’s also where we’ll post information as it develops, including a draft agenda , list of confirmed speakers and any other information that comes up.
Also below, as promised, is a current list of confirmed speakers/moderators. As you can see, we have participants coming from around the world and representing a wide array of stakeholders. We are also hoping to bring in representatives from the US Department of State (and other administrative agencies) as well as members of business (both small and medium businesses as well as large corporations).
Michael Addo, University of Exeter, Member of the U.N.’s Working Group on Business and Human Rights
Roger Branigan, The Global Community of Practice for Business and Human Rights
Karen Bravo, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
George Brenkert, Georgetown Business School
Jernej Cernic, Graduate School of Government and European Studies
Angela Cornell, Cornell Law School
Jonathan Drimmer, Georgetown Law
Jim Friedberg, West Virginia University College of Law
Andrew Friedman, Think Africa Press
Patricia Illingworth, Northeastern Law
Sarah Labowitz, NYU Business School
Lisa Laplante, University of Connecticut School of Law
Ben Love, Fresh Fields Bruckhaus Deringer, LLP
Marcia Narine, St. Thomas University School of Law
Genny Ngende, Vrije Univerisiteit Brussels
Justine Nolan, University of New South Wales
Nwamaka Okany, Amsterdam Center for International law
Alexandra Popov, Couns. Fmr. Liberian Pres.
Ashton Phillips, George Washington Law
Anita Ramasastry, School of Law – University of Washington
Astrid Sanders, Birmingham Law School
Faith Stevelman, New York Law
Atabong Tamo, Universiteit Antwerpen
JoseVargas-Hernandez, Universidad de la Guadalajara
