The need for sustainable exit strategies in land-related projects
When land-related projects fail or stall, local communities are often left with little to rely on and risk being left worse off than before.…
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2017
The Right to Decide
Liberty and autonomy are cornerstones of modern society. They are also core to personhood and human flourishing. However, a large portion of the population is denied the right to make decisions on the basis of cognitive disability.…
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The emerging health-security nexus in the European Union
The emerging interaction between public health and security policies in the EU raises a number of important questions of effectiveness and legitimacy.…
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ASEAN Interoperability: A New Model for International Intellectual Property Relations?
BREXIT. Multinational intellectual property agreements painfully difficult to negotiate and finalize. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement languishing, with only one signatory. Suspension of most of the IP provisions in the revamped Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.…
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New edition of The Legal Texts launched at the WTO’s Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires
A new compendium has been published bringing together the WTO’s founding and new agreements, and its annexes, in a more comprehensive and manageable format.…
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New tools in the field of National Action Plans on business and human rights
Great news for officials, practitioners and academics in the field of human rights and business: A website mapping National Action Plans (NAPs) on business and human rights globally and an updated Toolkit providing step-by-step guidance on how to develop a NAP is now available.…
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EU Law Stories: Contextual and Critical Histories of European Jurisprudence
EU Law Stories provides its readers with a “behind the scenes” look at how various actors influence legal decision-making within the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).…
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UN Forum on Business and Human Rights – Final Thoughts
Freshfields’ coverage of the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights concludes with themes emerging from the third and final day of the conference, and overall reflections on the event as a whole.…
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UN Forum on Business and Human Rights – Day Two Recap
Freshfields’ coverage of the 2017 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights – offering global corporations, governments, NGOs, human rights activists and other stakeholders an annual platform to explore and discuss initiatives concerning the role of business with respect to human rights – continues with the following summary of notable perspectives provided by participants across the spectrum.…
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UN Forum on Business and Human Rights – Day One Recap
In late November, members of Freshfields’ Global Business and Human Rights team attended and presented at the sixth UN Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva.…
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Six secrets to success: Analysis of key success factors for remedy in the case of DRC workers vs. Heineken at the Dutch NCP
During a panel discussion at the 6th annual UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, in Geneva, Switzerland, representatives of OECD Watch, Heineken, the Dutch NCP, and victims from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) discussed the successful process towards remedy following business-related human rights abuses by Heineken.…
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Women’s Rights: Bridging The Gap in Malawi
Last week, I took part in the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights. I reflected on how far we have come in terms of the positive progress we are making, together with our partners on the Malawi Tea 2020 programme, where we are seeing a range of improvements to peoples’ lives in tea communities.…
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Build It and They Will Come: The Formative Stages of Human Rights Education in Business Schools
Companies are increasingly expected to engage on prominent public policy issues facing society. Such areas of public policy interfacing with business include migration and the global refugee crisis, LGBTI rights, freedom of expression and terrorism, climate change, white supremacy, and human rights in the global economy.…
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Business and Human Rights: Prevailing Trends and Future Developments
This post originally featured in the Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer blog on the 22nd November 2017. Adoption of national legislation in France scrutinizing corporate efforts through mandated disclosure regimes and requiring companies to establish and implement vigilance plans constituted a watershed moment in business and human rights law.…
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The National Contact Point (NCP) System – Aligning NCP Processes with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
Under the theme of “Realizing Access to Effective Remedy” the 2017 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, will devote particular focus to the third pillar of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (“Guiding Principles” or “UNGPs”) – the need for access to effective remedy for those whose human rights are adversely affected by business activities.…
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Access to Remedy and Corporate Human Rights Impacts
As explored within this blog series, access to remedy is a rapidly improving, though still fundamentally weak, area of business of human rights (BHR) regulation.…
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How Should English Domiciled Multinationals Manage their Human Rights Risk in Light of the Judgment in Lungowe v Vedanta?
This post originally featured on the Oxford University Law Faculty’s blog on the 25th October 2017. Conventionally, the doctrines of separate corporate personality and forum non conveniens insulated English domiciled parent companies from liability for the actions of their foreign subsidiaries. …
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Empowering Communities as a Strategy for Holding Corporates Accountable
This post was originally featured in Oxfam America. The Business and Human Rights Community have consistently focused on stronger regulations, norms and practice of the private sector in holding corporations accountable for human rights violations and achieving access to remedy for the victims.…
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Effective Remedy: The power and pitfalls of multi-stakeholder engagement
The Global Business Initiative on Human Rights and the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre Over the past few years, the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights and the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, with the support of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights (UNWG), have organised a series of panels at the UN Annual Forum (Forum) bringing together affected communities, civil society, business representatives and government officials to explore implementation of the UN Guiding Principles (UNGPs) on the ground.…
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Finding a way through the A2R maze: OHCHR’s Accountability and Remedy Project
The decision by the UN Working Group to focus on access to remedy at the 2017 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights is a timely and welcome one.…
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Remedy to Children Toiling in Global Supply Chains
The only daughter in a family of poor farmers, 10-year-old Nirmala was desperate enough to run away to the city to seek work.…
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A practical step to remedying the cobalt child-labour problem
Access to remedy through judicial, administrative or legislative means is essential to righting wrongs. But to make these effective, the remedy landscape must recognise and squeeze out these wrongs.…
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Why the Business and Human Rights Community needs to engage with the SDGs
It has been more than two years since world leaders adopted the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).…
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International Investment Law and the UNGP
Several recent developments highlight the precarious relationship between international investment law (“IIL”), the law that protects foreign corporations (and other foreign investors) when they enter a new state, and international human rights law (“IHRL”), particularly the human rights of communities and individuals affected by foreign businesses.…
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Emerging into Focus: The Neglected Right and the Forgotten Pillar
Mental health considerations and remediation in cases of corporate-related human rights harm Reflecting on the theme of “Realizing Access to Remedy” at the upcoming UN Annual Forum, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights asserts that Pillar III of the UN Guiding Principles (UNGPs) is losing the epithet ‘forgotten pillar.’…
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Failures of redress, or when is a grievance mechanism not a grievance mechanism?
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights expect companies to establish operational-level grievance mechanisms for individuals and communities adversely impacted by company operations (Guiding Principle 29).…
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Discrimination, Copyright and Equality
Why did I write Discrimination, Copyright and Equality: Opening the E-Book for the Print Disabled? Since losing my eyesight in 1993 in a train accident I wanted to enjoy reading equality but was denied this right. …
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Arbitration: a new forum for business and human rights disputes?
This post originally featured on the Thomas Reuters Arbitration Blog on the 16th October 2017. On 27-29 November 2017, the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights will convene in Geneva.…
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Obligations to respect and protect human rights are meaningless without access to remedy in states where the rule of law is weak: The example of Myanmar
The right to effective remedy – the ‘third pillar’ of the United Nations Guiding Principles on business and human rights (UNGPS) – is already a fundamental human right.…
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A Jedi Approach for Companies to Manage Grievances and Land-Related Risk
Doing business in the Global South can be a risky proposition. Unfortunately, no matter how much planning a company does in advance of launching an investment, unforeseen challenges such as competing land claims or other investment-related disputes or trends can occur, causing negative impact on the operation.…
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Steps forward and steps back on the road to access to remedy in the banking sector
Two years ago, a panel discussion on access to remedy in the finance sector took place at the fourth UN Forum.…
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Access to Effective Remedy: Taking Human Rights and Rights Holders Seriously
Strengthening access to effective remedy for business-related human rights abuses is perhaps the most pressing challenge in the business and human rights (BHR) field.…
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Outcomes from OECD National Contact Point cases: More remedy than you may think!
The successful outcomes of the Heineken, Kinross and Statkraft cases have recently demonstrated that the National Contact Point system for the OECD Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct can be effective for providing access to remedy in the business and human rights domain.…
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Do local grievance mechanisms work?
Operational level grievance mechanisms are part of the UN General Principles’ access to remedy pillar, yet their role has been called into question by some sectors of civil society.…
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Reclaiming the forgotten pillar, and the law as an agent of change
Pillar three of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) on access to remedy has increasingly been referred to as the “forgotten pillar”.…
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Access to Remedy and Corporate Human Rights Impacts
As explored within this blog series, access to remedy is a rapidly improving, though still fundamentally weak, area of business of human rights (BHR) regulation.…
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Cambridge Open – Celebrating International Open Access Week 2017
Cambridge University Press is proud to support International Open Access Week, running from 23rd to 29th October 2017. As a leading University Press we are actively engaged with Open Access, and our Open Access publishing platform, Cambridge Open, serves authors and the wider community by publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed OA content. Follow our Facebook and Twitter pages this week to read blog posts from our Open Access team, read our most-read Open Access articles, and learn more about Cambridge Open.
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Open Access at the Press – more Gold, more Green, more sharing.
The development of our Open Access programme, Cambridge Open, continues to be a major area of importance for the Press, both Green and Gold OA.
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Legalized Families in the Era of Bordered Globalization – Exciting “Mini Book-Tour” in the US
I just came back from a hectic 10 days in the US, presenting my new book at 5 universities – it was a very intense, yet very satisfying, trip.…
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Global Animal Law – an introduction to the symposium
In this post, Anne Peters gives us an overview of the Symposium on Global Animal Law: Animals Matter in International Law and International Law Matters for Animals that is now published open access by AJIL Unbound.…
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How to be successful on the academic job market
Now that the new academic year has arrived, many Ph.D. students will be going on the job market for the first time.…
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Regulation of Marketing Food to Children
In May 2010, the 63rd World Health Assembly unanimously adopted WHO recommendations urging Member States to reduce the impact on children of the marketing of unhealthy food.…
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Informalising Innovation: Is anything happening below the radar?
Author of this blog post, Raphael Kaplinsky, is Professorial Fellow, Science Policy Research Unit, and Emeritus Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.…
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Call for Papers: Cambridge Handbook of Corporate Law, Corporate Governance and Sustainability
The emerging field of corporate law, corporate governance and sustainability represents one of the most dynamic and significant areas of law in light of the convergence of crises that we as a global society face.…
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No Longer Business as Usual: Citizens’ emerging role in enforcing the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in Zimbabwe
According to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) the responsibility to respect human rights requires that business enterprises: “Avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities, and address such impacts when they occur.”…
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Dealing with rejection: Advice from an editor
It happens to all academic researchers, all of the time. We have to deal with rejection – our papers get rejected for publication by journals.…
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‘”The Big Bang”: Analysing the EU Enlargements’ Impact on National Labour Law’
In 2004, then President of the European Union’s European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, declared that “from fifteen – suddenly there were twenty-five, and finally, Europe had become ‘Europe’ again.”…
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Antitrust, Intellectual Property and High Tech – your one-stop reference for the most important questions
Read headlines around the world and it seems as if most of the important high tech companies are actively engaged in antitrust investigations or litigation. …
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Filtering out people from public space
Donald Trump’s election has brought the ‘filter bubble’ to the attention of a wider public: As a result of personalised search results and news-streams, Internet users get less and less exposed to conflicting viewpoints and are isolated intellectually in their own informational bubble.…
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European, universal or mestizo? where was international law born, and why it matters today
From China’s assertive sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, to Russia’s intervention in Crimea, to America’s withdrawal from international regimes like the Paris Accord, international law’s potential to contribute to global governance has been dramatically tested.…
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India and Pakistan: Beyond the Cricket Field
The Jadhav case The Jadhav case between India and Pakistan, recently-entered on the docket of the International Court of Justice following India’s application, raises an interesting treaty conflict issue.…
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Can the Charity Commission remove the Charitable Status of Alternative Health Charities?
You might have read in the press recently that the Charity Commission has commenced a consultation about the continued registration as charities of complementary and alternative health charities.…
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Compassion and Law?
Compassion might seem an unusual topic to consider alongside law. Compassion is sometimes seen as a subjective, emotional, and capricious reaction to suffering that is incompatible with law’s objectivity, impartiality, reason, and public-oriented balancing of interests. …
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For what purposes should the government be able to take private property?
For what purposes should the government be able to take private property? When I first started writing about that question, I thought there was little chance anyone outside the United States would ever be interested in my work.…
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The Use of Economics in International Trade and Investment Disputes
We started to work on this book when the world still seemed to be okay for those looking at it through the lens of international economics or international economic law.…
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TEL Fifth Anniversary Lecture: A Celebration in REDD
Transnational Environmental Law (TEL) was launched in 2012. Its emphasis on the contribution of non-state actors and recognition of the multilevel governance context in which law and regulatory developments now occur was path breaking.…
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Criminal Justice: The DNA Revolution and the Evolution of Innocence
For centuries, scholars, judges and lawyers speculated about the error rate in the criminal justice system, many of them searching for absolute proof of the innocent person wrongfully convicted and imprisoned. …
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The Italian Connection and the German Constitutional Court
On April 3, 2014, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the leading German daily newspapers, published a small note. The journalist reported from a meeting of the German Federal Minister of the Interior with a few selected public law professors at an Italian restaurant in Berlin.…
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A Chip of Controlling Free Expression: Why China Wants to “Trade” its Copyright Protection?
Last Friday, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) published its annual National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers.…
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ICLQ Annual Lecture 2017: ‘The Right to Life and the International Law Framework Regulating the Use of Armed Drones’
There has been increased controversy in recent years surrounding the use of armed drones and their implication on the right to life.…
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Behind the scenes: Updated commentary on the First Geneva Convention
Updating the commentaries on the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols is a task that resembles more a marathon than a sprint. This is hardly a surprise, as it is now more than 60 years since the first set of Pictet Commentaries appeared, giving practical guidance on how the conventions should be implemented.
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Privacy and Power in the Trump Era
For several years transatlantic relations have been dogged by very different perspectives on privacy and intelligence-gathering held by many on the opposite sides of the Atlantic.
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Most Read in 2016
A collection of the most read posts published in 2016
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