Transnational Corporations and the Duty to Respect Basic Human Rights

Abstract

<jats:title>ABSTRACT:</jats:title><jats:p>In a series of reports the United Nations Special Representative on the issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations has emphasized a tripartite framework regarding business and human rights that includes the state “duty to protect,” the TNC “responsibility to respect,” and “appropriate remedies” for human rights violations. This article examines the recent history of UN initiatives regarding business and human rights and places the tripartite framework in historical context. Three approaches to human rights are distinguished: moral, political, and legal. It is argued that the tripartite framework’s grounding of the responsibility of TNCs to respect human rights is properly understood as moral and not merely as a political or legal duty. A moral account of the duty of TNCs to respect basic human rights is defended and contrasted with a merely strategic approach. The main conclusion of the article is that only a moral account of the basic human rights duties of TNCs provides a sufficiently deep justification of “the corporate responsibility to respect human rights” feature of the tripartite framework.</jats:p>

Conflict Minerals and Supply Chain Due Diligence: An Exploratory Study of Multi-tier Supply Chains

“…Human rights violations and social problems are highly prevalent in business practices despite the success story of corporate social responsibility (CSR) 1 in the last two decades (Arnold, 2010). In fact, social conflicts and human rights abuses caused by companies are rather rule than exception and thus, the United Nations' Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises (2014, p. 3) recently reported to the General Assembly an urgent need " […] to strengthen legal and policy frameworks to prevent and protect against human rights abuses by business enterprises".…”

The New (Old) Case for the Ethics of Business

“…I am not so sure, but it is a worthy thesis nonetheless. 12 There are certainly rights-based approaches that demand business persons do something more to legitimize business activity (see, for example, Werhane 1985;Hsieh 2004;Arnold 2010;Wettstein 2012), and I thank an anonymous reviewer for recommending that I address this gap in my presentation. However, since this paper is intended primarily to address those approaches that incorporate ancient, Greekstyle virtue ethics in their understanding of business vocations in the capitalistic market system, and since other contenders discussing virtues and vocations tend to rely heavily on coupling Greek-style ethics with consequentialist ethics, I have put aside the rights-based approaches that claim business persons do something more.…”

Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility: Competing or Complementary Approaches to Poverty Reduction and Socioeconomic Rights?

“…For example, it is reflected in the reports of John Ruggie as the Special Representative to the United Nations Secretary-General (SRSG) on business and human rights (Ruggie, 2007;UN 2008a, b) and the descriptive and normative legal, management and business ethics commentaries the reports have generated (Arnold 2010;Cragg 2012;Fasterling and Demuijnck 2013;Mayer 2009;McCorquodale 2009;Muchlinski 2012;Nolan and Taylor 2009;Whelan and Orlitzky 2009;Wood 2012). The SRSG's Framework (UN 2008b) and Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UN 2011) adopted a ''protect, respect and remedy'' framework essentially stipulating respective state and corporate obligations to ''protect and fulfill'' and ''respect'' human rights.…”