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Corporate Social Responsibility and International Human Rights Law

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Abstract

The United Nations Special Representative on Transnational Corporations and Human Rights, John Ruggie, has adopted a new framework for considering this issue within the international legal system. This article examines this framework in terms of its coherence, its consistency with international human rights law and how it can be ‘operationalized’ (which is required by the United Nations). In regard to the states legal obligation to protect human rights, it is considered whether this obligation is broader and deeper than is envisaged in the framework, especially if it can include the extra-territorial activities of corporations. The corporate responsibility to respect human rights is examined in terms of its conceptual and definitional problems, and the article also questions whether there will be sufficient legal remedies available to victims under the framework.

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Acknowledgements

My thanks to Ndanga Kamau for all her invaluable research and Oliver R. Jones for his research, insights and editing skills.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. British Institute of International and Comparative Law, Charles Clore House, 17 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5JP, U.K.

    Robert McCorquodale

  2. International Law and Human Rights, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, U.K.

    Robert McCorquodale

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  1. Robert McCorquodale
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Correspondence to Robert McCorquodale.

Additional information

This article is a revised version of an address given at the Nottingham University Business School’s symposium on ‘Spheres of Influence/Spheres of Responsibility: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights’, held in November 2008.

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McCorquodale, R. Corporate Social Responsibility and International Human Rights Law. J Bus Ethics 87 (Suppl 2), 385–400 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0296-5

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