Business and Human Rights

The course begins with a review of the international debate on the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and traces the emergence, within the United Nations, of a new framework on business and human rights. In the years since the GPs were endorsed, a key critique from major human rights organizations and legal scholars has been that, despite the progress the GPs have brought, many survivors of corporate-related human rights abuses still lack access to justice. In fact, some critics have claimed that the third pillar of the UN Protect, Respect & Remedy framework – “access to remedy” – is the weakest one. In the second part of the course, we will therefore explore selected accountability mechanisms at the international, national and local or company levels. We start by looking at a draft international treaty on business and human rights, which is meant to address gaps in access to remedy that exist at the national level. We will also discuss legislation on mandatory human rights due diligence (“mHRDD”) that is emerging in several jurisdictions. We then spend three sessions looking at a number of existing measures and mechanisms, both judicial and non-judicial, through which corporations might be held accountable in some measure for their impact on human rights. These include transnational litigation, the OECD National Contact Point (NCP) system and enterprise-level grievance mechanisms. 

Next we focus on two areas that pose particularly difficult challenges in relation to human rights (extractive industries and their impact on Indigenous peoples; and global supply chains and violations of the rights of workers in these supply chains). We examine key issues and explore how civil society organizations, governments, companies themselves and other stakeholders have sought to address these. The seminar concludes with a discussion of an approach from within the private sector itself – sustainable or responsible investment – and the implications of this approach for strengthening corporate responsibility to respect human rights. The final session is reserved for revision.

This course explores both theory and practice, and students will have the opportunity to discuss and debate actual cases that demonstrate the complexities found at the intersection of business and human rights. 

Tutor: Dr Umlas