Private military and security companies (PMSCs) are increasingly present in contemporary conflicts, from Ukraine, Mali, Syria to Libya. They are often described as a modern phenomenon and approached primarily as a regulatory challenge.…
Read part 1 of this post here. Impact of Ethics Ethics is needed because the present situation and status quo in this area are so alarming (e.g.,…
Ethics Right From the Start The end of the year 2021 brought an extraordinary announcement that a technological genie was being shoved back into its bottle: Facebook (now: Meta) stopped using the facial-recognition software that allows it to automatically detect and tag people in photos and videos.…
Part II: In part I the author backgrounded the proposal for a new UK law to enhance corporate responsibility to respect human rights and the environment and gave a brief overview of the proposed law.…
PART I A new law on the cards It has been a long journey for the UK to bring domestic force to its endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).…
PART II: In the previous part, the authors contextualized the neglect of Indonesian indigenous women in development projects and illuminated the multi-layered impact of natural resource conflicts on such indigenous women.…
PART I Introduction Indigenous women have a crucial role to play in the development of Indonesia. In addition to safeguarding the archipelago’s cultural values and traditional knowledge, they play a significant role in economic resilience, social cohesion, and natural environmental preservation.…
Introduction On 12 January 2023, the Swedish mining company LKBA announced the discovery of Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth elements – materials that are crucial for the production of a variety of renewable energy technologies – in northern Sweden, in the area of the city of Kiruna.…
The updated draft business and human rights (BHR) treaty of July 2023, that forms the basis of negotiations for the ninth session of the Intergovernmental Working Group during the 9th session of the OEIGWG meetings beginning the week of 23rd October has had some interesting changes.…
In the heart of New York City, from August 10th to 12th, 2023, a cohort of twelve scholars hailing from multiple countries, backgrounds and disciplines converged for the 8th Business and Human Rights (BHR) Young Researchers’ Summit.…
On June 1, 2023, Members of the European Parliament voted, with a large majority, in favour of new European rules on corporate sustainability due diligence.…
As the European Union’s three legislative bodies sit down to reconcile their proposals for a draft directive on corporate sustainability due diligence, legislators have a brand-new tool to support their negotiation: the newly updated and renamed OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises for Responsible Business Conduct (Guidelines).…
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it was laying off its AI ethics department, joining earlier cuts of ethicists at Meta, Google, Amazon and Twitter, and thereby setting a precedent for smaller tech companies with minimal financial resources that cutting corners in ethical and humane technological advancements is acceptable. …
In 2022, the European Commission (EC) proposed a new Regulation to ban products made using forced labour from the EU market.…
On February 3, 2014, I wrote here about the hell which workers at Rana Plaza had gone through, and finished by asking ‘Where do we go from here?’…
The Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 in Bangladesh exposed the severe safety issues and exploitative practices in global supply chains and the need for greater corporate liability.…
Zambia defaulted on its debt in November 2021 but has not yet reached an agreement with its creditors. Its president recently warned that this situation is hurting its citizens and undermining its democracy because “you cannot eat democracy”.…
An important case is making its way up the appellate system of England & Wales. The case, reported at its last stage asMcGaughey v USS [2022] EWHC 133 (Ch), concerns the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS).…
States are currently discussing the future of one of the most important instruments for international peace and security and the room is almost empty.…
As the sun sets over the vast cocoa plantations of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, the hardworking farmers who tend to the crops are left in the dark shadows of poverty and inequality.…
The United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Protect, Respect, and Remedy Framework) were a breakthrough initiative. The Principles have brought considerable business attention to the issue of human rights and provided ways for businesses to begin to begin to be held accountable for egregious violations.…
In the 1990s, author Neal Stephenson envisioned an immersive world that would be accessed by virtual reality goggles. He named the world the metaverse.…
This blog post by Dr Tara Van Ho is the first in a series of blog pieces by describing a change or changes the writer would like to see in any part of the field of business and human rights. …
Big pharma companies have gone to extreme lengths to squeeze every last dollar out of the Covid-19 pandemic, regardless of the huge human cost.…
As we enter 2023 here are the most read Business and Human Rights Journal blog posts of 2022: 10 Human Dignity abused is at Number 10 of our most viewed blogs.…
The blog analyses Brazil´s role in the business and human rights agenda after 2014, when two processes came together: the UN Intergovernmental Working Group on a Business and Human Rights Treaty and the Working Group on Business and Human Rights known by its efforts to have the National Action Plans based on the UN Guiding Principles approved.…
Peru is highly dependent on the mining sector (mining accounts for 10% of its GDP and 60% of exports). The Peruvian legal framework promotes mining investments and, at the same time, incorporates business and human rights standards, such as citizen participation in environmental impact assessments (EIA) and prior consultation of indigenous communities before the commencement of operations.…
Dr Oyeniyi Abe’s book Implementing Business and Human Rights Norms in Africa is a vitally important publication that comes at a time of urgent international security challenges and global climate and health emergencies.…
This week, feminists and human rights defenders from around the world will gather in Geneva to push for action on a matter of great urgency – the 8th session of negotiations for a UN Binding Treaty on Business & Human Rights, legislation at the international level that would hold corporations accountable for their business impacts.…
Introduction The UK government’s sanctions on the assets of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich- the owner of Chelsea Football Club (Chelsea) – have brought to light English football’s problematic relationship with foreign capital.…
The failure to hold to account criminally UK companies (and companies which operate in the UK and/or have UK listings) which are complicit in human rights abuses abroad stands in stark contrast to more promising developments in countries such as France, with the Lafarge case, and Sweden with the Lundin case.…
La Guajira: Natural wealth vs exploitation As a Guajira woman, feminist and social researcher, I want to share some personal reflections from the vision of female leadership as caretakers of the land and the fight against different forms of colonization and exploitation present in La Guajira.…
Women’s economic empowerment (WEE) is central to realising their human rights. The access of women towards employment opportunities and economic empowerment is also beneficial for corporations and the wider community.…
The Hong Kong government has vowed to potentially further criminally punish the leaders of the now disbanded the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU), which was Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy trade union.…
A dominant idea in international human rights practice is that states must respect human dignity. In the case of Venezuela, human dignity has been systematically and repeatedly violated.…
The Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 has resulted in serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.…
Feminist perspectives on inequalities have been long been eclipsed from discussions on business and human rights (BHR). When efforts have been made to put a ‘gender lens’ on business and human rights, these have often been underpinned by neoliberal thinking and the related ‘business case’ for gender equality that merely seeks to insert women into existing markets and labour relations.…
After some unexpected delays as some of the lesser known – and opaque – structures of EU law making came into play, there is finally a published proposal for mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence from the European Commission.…
In a strange meeting of worlds, the beginning of 2022 saw an international tennis championship colliding with Australia’s historical abuse of asylum seekers.…
The new constitution of Mongolia was adopted on January 13, 1992. It stated that respecting and upholding human rights, freedom, and justice are crucial in Mongolia.…
There have been many heartfelt and thoughtful tributes to John Gerard Ruggie since his passing in September 2021. Some academics expressed their sentiments by exploring the ways in which his scholarship profoundly influenced the field of international relations, and their own path in that field.…
Businesses engaging in energy transitions are developing sophisticated tools to report their commitment to tackling environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) issues.…
The chaotic scenery during the evacuation of Hamid Karzai airport in Kabul following the withdrawal of U.S. troops in August 2021 documents the limitations of the Western approach to spread human rights and democracy globally.…
In June, the judgment of the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in NESTLE USA, INC. v. DOE ET AL diminished the impact of the US Alien Torts Act on US based corporations with international supply chains.…
Pharmaceutical corporations are centrally involved in the fight against Covid-19. In many cases, their research – often generously funded by states – has been of vital importance in the development of vaccines.…
Violence and harassment are pervasive throughout all countries, occupations and workplaces. According to the WHO, 1 in 3 women, around 736 million, are subjected to violence throughout their lifetime.…
Women’s human rights continue to be restricted when it comes to equal access to leadership opportunities. Although there has been a global increase in women’s representation on corporate boardrooms, the number of women leading boardrooms across the globe still remains low.…
In the run up to CoP26, Tesla became the first electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer to have a market value of over $1 trillion.…
Newcastle United is now owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The UK media has almost universally condemned the takeover, and Newcastle fans support for the takeover, as paradigmatic examples of contemporary amorality, valuing football over human rights.…
Modest, humble, self-effacing, gentle, calm, good humored, and generous—and at the same time one of the most powerful intellects and impactful scholar-practitioners of his time: that was my experience of John Ruggie.…
Climate responses necessitate trade-offs, which may reinforce inequality. A gender and social equity approach is required to ensure that farmers with least resilience benefit from climate action through transformative climate adaptation.…
At the time when the world celebrates the 10th anniversary of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), their uptake in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe remains extremely low.…
Introduction The Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) is the independent accountability mechanism for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), private sector arms of the World Bank Group (WBG).…
Sustainable finance is ordinarily considered a force for good aimed at mobilising financial support for climate action (SDG 13), among other environmental objectives.…
The increased importance of human rights due diligence (HRDD) in conflict affected areas or contexts that otherwise have a complex security situation was recently highlighted in the UN Working Group’s report Business, human rights and conflict-affected regions: towards heightened action UNWG 2020.…
We cannot solve problems with the same mindset that created them. -Albert Einstein As I sit to write this post on business and human rights in relation to conflict, the Palestinian people face yet another cycle of violence in their struggle for the right to self-determination, bringing forward the academic challenge that comes with trying to detach one’s self from a personal connection to a topic.…
The most recent Report of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights centered around business and human rights in conflict zones.…
Michael Scott – the incompetent but somehow highly successful manager at the heart of the US comedy The Office – once claimed, “Truth be told, I think I thrive under a lack of accountability.”…
Last October, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights launched its report ‘Business, human rights and conflict-affected regions: towards heightened action’.…
In July 2020, the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises (Working Group) issued its report, Business, human rights and conflict-affected regions: towards heightened action (A/75/212), which purports to clarify “the practical steps and outlines practical measures that States and business enterprises should take to prevent and address business-related human rights abuse in conflict and post-conflict contexts, focusing on heightened human rights due diligence and access to remedy” (p.…
On 22 April 2021, the Escazu Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean entered into force.…
In evangelising businesses to follow the UN Guiding Principles, the business and human rights movement has weighed the advantages of wielding the ‘business case’ versus the moral case.…
In this blog post we address a business and human rights issue that emerged from the recent report of Ireland’s Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes: that of corporate complicity in unlicensed clinical trials carried out upon incarcerated children.…
Today marks the sixth anniversary that the UK Modern Slavery Act (MSA) was enacted into law. The UK Government has recently announced proposed changes to the transparency in supply chains (TISC) provision of the MSA, which requires companies to detail their efforts to address modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains.…
This blog post announces the formation of a new special interest group at the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association, Human Rights and Political Economy, sketching some core interests of the field and why they matter today. …
On 1 January 2021 the ‘Regulation (EU) 2017/821 laying down supply chain due diligence obligations for Union importers of tin, tantalum and tungsten, their ores, and gold (3TGs) originating from conflict-affected and high-risk areas’ (CAHRAs) came into force.…
Recently, Nestle decided to end the relationship between its Kit Kat brand of chocolates and Fairtrade, a UK based labelling organisation.…
Environmental activist and indigenous leader Berta Cáceres – who in 2015 was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize – was assassinated in Honduras one year later, in 2016, for leading a protest against a hydroelectric power dam.…
Central and Eastern Europe has often been forgotten from business and human rights discourse. Unjustifiably so. Whereas some European countries have been the front-runners in developments in business and human rights standards, several challenges, including systematic business-related human rights abuses, have been prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).…
The late twentieth and early twenty first centuries have […] come to be widely touted as the era of human rights – a sentiment that captures both the preponderance of rights-talk and the immense promise that it invariably carries.…
Our 2019 article Rights Holders’ Participation and Access to Remedies: Lessons Learned from the Doce River Dam Disaster analyses remediation efforts that followed the collapse of the Fundão mining tailings dam in 2015 in Brazil which caused severe environmental, social, and economic losses.…
The long-awaited Second Revised Draft Treaty on Business and Human Rights was published on 6 August 2020, bringing high hopes for accountability in cases of corporate human rights abuses (the Resource Centre’s unofficial summary of the latest draft is available here).…
Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) was only on the statute book for 41 days and not yet in force when Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash introduced a ballot measure asking Californians to exempt them from this key piece of state employment legislation.…
As per 28 September, the total COVID-19 cases in Indonesia reached 278,722, following a single day increase of 3,509 in new cases.…
‘Big Data on BHR: Innovative Approaches to Analysing the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre Database’, a recently published article in the Business and Human Rights Journal, provides new insights into the study of business and human rights (BHR).…
In July 2020, a High Court judgment in Begum v Maran was handed down where, for the first time, an English court has grappled with the controversial issue of “shipbreaking”.…
September 13th is the 50th anniversary of the seminal Milton Friedman article from The New York Times Magazine, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.”…
Prior to the advent of the Factories Act of 1883, India had seen the worst of an unregulated labour market, a convenient indentured labour base for the British Empire which saw workers as dispensable commodities to its profit-making industries.…
Introduction Many state governments of India have amended their labour laws in the wake of the economic crisis posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.…
This post was originally published on the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s website and can be accessed here. The devastating human rights implications of the global COVID-19 pandemic have been thoroughly documented: Civil society has exposed the failure of many governments to protect their citizens and of many businesses to respect human rights in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights.…
As the Covid-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions put in place to attempt containment drag on, around 200,000 merchant seafarers are trapped aboard ships in violation of international law.…
The parliamentary tug-of-war over the ‘Responsible Business Initiative’ (RBI) has come to a preliminary end. It is now certain that the Swiss public will vote on the popular initiative, which aspires to introduce the responsibility of businesses for human rights and the environment abroad into the Swiss Federal Constitution.…
The recent gas leak from the LG polymer gas plant has wreaked havoc in the town of Visakhapatnam in India. A toxic gas – styrene – leaked at around 3 am on May 7 from LG Polymer, a South-Korean-owned local plastic-manufacturing plant.…
Conflict-driven societies are the most difficult places for exercising even basic human rights and are more prone to gross violations of human rights.…
In this time of coronavirus crisis, we are seeing many of the less well-off workforce in the UK and the West under stress.…
Cet article est une traduction réalisée avec l’aide de Pauline Hoerner de l’article de blog suivant : All Eyes on France – French Vigilance Law First Enforcement Cases (2/2) The Challenges Ahead, publié au Business and Human Rights Journal Blog en janvier 2020.…
Cet article est une traduction réalisée avec l’aide de Pauline Hoerner de l’article de blog suivant : All Eyes on France – French Vigilance Law First Enforcement Cases (1/2) Current Cases and Trends publié au Business and Human Rights Journal Blog en janvier 2020.…
Late last month, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) revoked its ban on imports from a Malaysian rubber gloves manufacturer accused of engaging in forced labour.…
The past years have seen a growing interest in the role of businesses in the protection of human rights and the environment.…
The global pandemic Covid-19 has turned the world upside down. Although it is not nearly over, it has already taught all of us: businesses, States and civil society, lessons beyond the outbreak to correct market failures and reshape the global economy to be more inclusive and less of a pollutant.…
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has appealed for human rights to be front and centre of the coordinated international response to the COVID-19 pandemic.…
The first United States (US) human trials of a coronavirus vaccine began in March. These trials are being conducted by a research organisation in Seattle. …
A wild animal displaced from its natural environment enters into contact with other animals in a crowded market. It becomes the vector of a virus, previously unknown to the human body, which is later passed on to humans and starts spreading from person to person.…
This post was originally published as part of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s Corporate Legal Accountability Quarterly Update which can be accessed here.…
The global pandemic has shaken up our societies and global economy. It will run deep in every society worldwide for months and years to come.…
Should Facebook users be treated equally? In late 2018, Mark Zuckerberg announced the creation of the Facebook Oversight Board (FOB), a purportedly independent global body that would adjudicate hard cases of content moderation on the platform.…
amfori is a global business association bringing together over 2,400 retailers, brands and associations from more than 40 countries. Our membership contains organizations of all sizes and sectors with a combined turnover of more than one trillion euros.…
In the context of corporate accountability and remedy, the inequality of arms is an oft-cited concern. A corporate opponent is likely to have more financial resources, organization and access to relevant information in the pursuit and course of conflict resolution.…
Individuals, workers, communities, are all exposed to harm, and yet they are on the periphery of transnational regulation, even when they are its critical object.…
In recent years, there has been a considerable increase in attention paid to the benefits and pitfalls of using non-State-based grievance mechanisms as an avenue to seek remedy for business-related human rights abuse. …
The English language contains a wealth of insults and terms of abuse. Personal insults attack the core and immutable aspects of a person, such as their race, ethnicity, appearance, age, or a disability.…
Even though findings from genetics and other sciences unequivocally refute biological conceptions of race, this erroneous viewpoint remains widespread among the general public.…
The March article of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International is the first blog of the series. The blog is written by Dr Dami Ajayi, Specialty Doctor, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Trainee/Blog Editor, BJPsych International.…
Some disability-related names have dropped out of usage, because they are now considered to be offensive due to their origins. Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21) is one example.…
The paper “The role of premenstrual syndrome in hedonic hunger and food craving during the menstrual cycle“, published in Journal of Nutritional Science, has been chosen as the latest Editorial Highlight and is freely available to download for one month.…
For over a century, the giant stone jars of northern Laos have remained one of Southeast Asia’s great archaeological mysteries. Scattered across remote ridgelines and forests on the Plain of Jars, these massive megalithic vessels have sparked debate over their true purpose: storage containers, symbolic monuments, or part of a complex mortuary tradition?…
The Paper of the Month for March is ‘Impact of omega-3 fatty acid supplementation on clinical manifestations in autism spectrum disorders: an umbrella review of meta-analyses“.…
How long will humankind survive? Besides the fact that we have been able to eliminate ourselves with nuclear weapons for decades, even without a third world war, the challenge to take care of the resources of our planet remains; we need to use them in a way that our children and their children can have a place on Earth as well. In this blog post Andreas Losch discusses his recent review article in the International Journal of Astrobiology, The need of an ethics of planetary sustainability
It is an article of faith among ordinary Filipinos that American troops will die with Filipino troops defending Philippine claims to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea (SCS).…
Q&A with Editor-in-Chief of the Precision Medicine Journal, Dame Anna Dominiczak, for International day of Women and Girls in Science
More and more research is finding inflammation as a potential contributing factor towards to the development of various mental illnesses. A systematic review was conducted to determine the association between parasitic infection and mental illnesses in various African populations. Two parasite groups were evaluated; helminths and protozoans, and four mental illness classifications; depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, schizotypal disorders and unspecified mental illnesses.
This is the first post in our new series: “Conversations with Authors.” For our inaugural post, we asked Dr. Vesla Weaver to meet (virtually) with Dr.…
The March article of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International is the first blog of the series. The blog is written by Dr Dami Ajayi, Specialty Doctor, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Trainee/Blog Editor, BJPsych International.…
The English language contains a wealth of insults and terms of abuse. Personal insults attack the core and immutable aspects of a person, such as their race, ethnicity, appearance, age, or a disability.…
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