The UN Human Rights Norms for Corporations: The Private Implications of Public International Law

Abstract

Though many years in the making, the UN Human Rights Norms for Corporations only registered on the radars of most states, corporations and civil society organisations in August 2003 when they began to move up the ladder of the United Nation's policy-making processes. Since then they have been subject to intense, and sometimes intemperate, debate, scrutiny and controversy. A particular legal feature of the deliberations has been the focus on the closely related questions of the legal standing of the Norms in their present format (namely, an imperfect draft, and therefore, of no direct legal force), and what they might become (possiblyçthough not likely soonça treaty that speaks to corporations but binds states). A potent mix of distrust and suspicion, vested interests, politics and economics has given rise to a great deal of grand-standing *Professor, Chair in Human Rights Law,

Business and the International Human Rights Regime: A Comparison of UN Initiatives

“…The Sub-Commission is composed of 26 experts who act in their personal capacity and represent an equitable geographical distribution. The actual drafting of the Norms was mainly done by Professor David Weissbrodt, a member of the working group that was asked to examine the issue of business and human rights, but the Norms were debated at the annual meetings of the Sub-Commission until they were adopted in 2003 (Kinley and Chambers, 2006;Weissbrodt and Kruger, 2003). The Norms, therefore, emerged through the usual decision-making procedures of the international human rights regime.…”

Human rights and impact assessment: clarifying the connections in practice

“…In the face of mounting international pressure from these and other cases, the issue of business and human rights was taken up by the UN in 2005 and given particular prominence through the appointment of Professor John Ruggie as the "United Nations (Kinley & Chambers 2006), and were never adopted by the UN (United Nations 2010).…”

Human Rights and the New Corporate Accountability: Learning from Recent Developments in Corporate Criminal Liability

“…From this point of view, one can only welcome Ruggie's questioning of the conceptual robustness of key human rights initiatives, such as the UN Norms (Ruggie, 2006, para.56). However, at the same time, one cannot help having similar concerns about the conceptual underpinnings of the SRSG's 3rd Report itself (Kinley and Chambers, 2007).…”

“…However, for the time being, it does save the 3rd Report from far more dangerous cleavages, such as the one between the business lobbies and the human rights activists. Such cleavages have brought the UN Norms to an abrupt halt (Kinley and Chambers, 2007). However, when assessing the long-term potential of success of such initiatives as the UN Norms or the framework of the 3rd Report, one should also bear in mind that whilst controversy may be difficult to live with, the lack of it might prove even more difficult.…”