Corporate Power and Human Rights / Edition 1

by Manette Kaisershot, Nicholas Connolly

Overview

There is ample evidence about the negative effects business activity of all types can have on the provision of human rights. Equally, there can be little doubt economic development, usually driven through business activity and trade, is necessary for any state to provide the institutions and infrastructure necessary to secure and provide human rights for their citizens. The United Nations and businesses recognise this tension and are collaborating to effect change in business behaviours through voluntary initiatives such as the Global Compact and John Ruggie’s Guiding Principles. Yet voluntary approaches are evidently failing to prevent human rights violations and there are few alternatives in law for affected communities to seek justice. This book seeks to robustly challenge the current status quo of business approaches to human rights in order to develop meaningful alternatives in an attempt to breech the gap between the realities of business and human rights and its discourse. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138391772
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/03/2019
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Manette Kaisershot is a researcher and lecturer at the Human Rights Consortium, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK. Her research primarily concentrates on issues in Business and Human Rights, but also encompasses cultural studies, politics, sociology, and economics.

Nicholas Connolly is a Doctoral researcher at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Corporate power and human rights 2. Corporate human rights commitments and the psychology of business acceptance of human rights duties: a multi-industry analysis 3. Extreme energy, ‘fracking’ and human rights: a new field for human rights impact assessments? 4. ‘From naming and shaming to knowing and showing’: human rights and the power of corporate practice 5. Global production, CSR and human rights: the courts of public opinion and the social licence to operate 6. These are financial times: a human rights perspective on the UK financial services sector 7. Company-created remedy mechanisms for serious human rights abuses: a promising new frontier for the right to remedy? 8. Beyond the 100 Acre Wood: in which international human rights law finds new ways to tame global corporate power 9. CSR is dead: long live Pigouvian taxation 10. Defending corporate social responsibility: Myanmar and the lesser evil