Global Production, CSR and Human Rights: The Courts of Public Opinion and the Social License to Operate

This paper takes at its starting point the responsibility placed upon corporations by the United Nations’ Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework as elaborated upon by the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to respect human rights. The overt pragmatism and knowledge of the complex business relationships that are embedded in global production led John Ruggie, the author of the Framework, to adopt a structure for the relationship between human rights and business that built on the existing practices of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). His intention was that these practices should be developed to embrace respect for human rights by exhorting corporations to move from “the era of declaratory CSR” to showing a demonstrable policy commitment to respect for human rights. The prime motivation for corporations to do this was, according to Ruggie, because the responsibility to respect was one that would be guarded and judged by the “courts of public opinion” as part of the social expectations imposed upon corporations or to put it another way as a condition of a corporation’s social license to operate.
This article sets out the background context to the Framework and examines the structures that it puts forward. In its third and final section the article looks at how the Framework requires a corporation’s social license to be assembled and how and by whom that social license will be judged. The success or failure of the Framework in persuading corporations to respect human rights is tied to whether “the courts of public opinion” can use their “naming and shaming power” effectively.

Operationalizing the Comparative International Human Rights Law Method: A Case Study of CEDAW in National Courts

In this chapter, I focus on how the example of CEDAW illustrates the methodological and conceptual difficulties that future work in comparative international human is likely to encounter. Despite the challenges, I suggest that the worked example of CEDAW has raised interesting lines for empirical analysis, and additional perspectives which may enrich normative inquiry, sufficient to justify comparative international human rights law being regarded as likely to give rise to insights that might not otherwise have emerged, and therefore to be as an approach worth pursuing in the future.

10-6-20, championnats de France [de] tennis, Miss Lenglen [associée en double à Mlle d'Ayen, courts de la Croix-Catelan] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 59628

10-6-20, championnats de France [de] tennis, Miss Lenglen [associée en double à Mlle d'Ayen, courts de la Croix-Catelan] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 59629

10-6-20, championnats de France [de] tennis, Miss Lenglen [associée en double à Mlle d'Ayen, courts de la Croix-Catelan] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 59630

10-6-20, championnats de France [de] tennis, Miss Lenglen [associée en double à Mlle d'Ayen, courts de la Croix-Catelan] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]

Référence bibliographique : Rol, 59631

Message from the President of the United States, communicating, in compliance with a resolutión of the Senate, the proceedings of thetwo courts of inquiry in the case of Major General Pillow.

UANL

The Supreme Court’s Understanding of Federalism: Efficiency at the Expense of Diversity

This paper is an examination of the Supreme Court of Canada's interpretation of federalism since constitutional repatriation in 1982. It argues that the lure of centralist efficiency is overpowering a fundamentally important part of our federal order: regionalism. The author contends that changes made by the Court to certain fundamental concepts of Canadian constitutional law now provide Parliament with greater latitude than before in the exercise of its legislative powers. According to the author, these changes are disturbing because they are structured so as to preclude consideration of the legitimate concerns of regional polities. Furthermore, he argues that the Court has reinforced the central government's power to regulate the economy, including intraprovincial matters affecting trade, by resorting to highly functional tests that emphasize economic efficiency over other criteria. This, he claims, makes it more difficult to invoke legitimate regional interests that would lead to duplication, overlapping and even, in the eyes of some, inefficiency. The author the focuses on the Court's treatment of environmental protection in an attempt to show the tension between the Court's desire to use a functional approach and the need to recognize regional interests. Finally, through an examination of recent case law, he attemps to demonstrate that the Court's dominant perspective remains functional despite its endorsement of a more community-oriented undestanding of federalism in Secession Reference. If the Court chooses to proceed in this manner, it will alienate regional polities and may encourage them to choose more radical means of asserting their differences. Further, the author argues that strict adherence to the functional effectiveness approach will undermine the very values that federalism is meant to promote.