|
|
Shopping for Human Rights!
If we know more about the products we buy, we can make informed decisions about where we buy them from. |
|
|
|
In a world where the 50 of the 100 biggest economies are multinational companies and new communications technology is erasing national borders, governments are no longer the sole agents of global behavior.
Corporations have reached a level of influence that makes them both a problem and a potential solution in human rights struggles and requires a dual effort: holding them accountable for their actions (and the actions of their suppliers) while also providing a path so that their actions can support a positive human rights agenda. |
 |
How to Incorporate Human Rights Obligations in Bilateral Investment Treaties?
Mar 22, 2013 - Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) are, at least in their present form, asymmetrical. Foreign investors are being accorded substantive rights under these treaties without being subject to any specific obligations. In this context, one question that has been increasingly debated in academia and in civil society is whether there is a need for a greater degree of balance in BITs between the legitimate interests of investors and host countries. This question is part of a boarder debate on how human rights violations committed by corporations doing business abroad can best be addressed. Some international instruments, such as international human rights treaties, are specifically directed at the activities of corporations. However, the obligations contained in these instruments are binding on the contracting states and not on corporations themselves. International law (as it now stands) does not impose any direct legal obligations on corporations. However, nothing in international law prevents countries from signing treaties (such as BITs) that would impose human rights obligations upon corporations. |
|
New Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council
On 16 June 2011, the UN Human Rights Council endorsed Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights for implementing the UN “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework, providing – for the first time – a global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse impacts on human rights linked to business activity. Source: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) |
|
|
|
