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. Since it was first organised in 2016, the Summit has become a well-established platform for PhD students and early post-doctoral researchers to showcase their work in an interdisciplinary and collaborative format.

This year’s event was hosted by the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, with the support of the University of St. Gallen and the University of Geneva. The Summit proceeded under the guidance of distinguished Professors Dorothee Baumann-Pauly and Florian Wettstein, and benefited from the contributions of well-established scholars and practitioners such as Michael Posner, Sarah Dadush and Batia Wiesenfeld.

Three Themes, One Message

Year after year, the international and interdisciplinary nature of the Summit has attracted scholars from a wide range of disciplines, geographies, thought traditions, and methodologies. This year was no exception. Amidst this plurality, participants this year converged on  three pivotal themes: the essential role of rights holders’ voices, the persistence of asymmetrical power dynamics, and the significance of empirical research in addressing these challenges. Over the course of three days, conversations around these themes produced a resounding message: the need and aspiration to usher in a new era of BHR characterised by diversity, introspection, and an unwavering focus on placing rights holders squarely within the discourse at the practical core, the power of their voices recognised and amplified.

The Criticality of Rights Holders’ Voices

The research work presented at the Summit underscored the central role of rights holders’ voices in understanding human rights risks, improving accountability processes and outcomes, and securing remedies in relation to adverse corporate human rights impacts. Young and emerging scholars are preoccupied with the inadequacy of existing accountability models, epistemological communities of practice, and narrow sectoral focus for which research on BHR exists. They also highlighted the ways in which corporate behaviours, power dynamics, and the BHR field and discourse itself have presented barriers to rights holders’ voices being sought, heard, and prioritised. Researchers from this multi-disciplinary cohort stressed the importance of approaches that centre the voices of rights holders to advance the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Other discussions highlighted the potential of multi-stakeholder collaboration to foster meaningful change and challenge the status quo by urgently addressing pressing issues such as the alarming increase in the incidence of child labour and other salient issues.

It is a truism that voices have the power to change the world. At its core, a voice symbolises individual empowerment and asserts the most fundamental freedoms and human rights. Participants at the Summit emphasised that the voices of rights holders matter, and promote fairness and autonomy, thereby driving corporate accountability and ethical standards. When absent or suppressed, this silence perpetuates oppression, for which we all bear the consequences. Yet the silencing, suppression, and appropriation of the voices of rights holders is often perpetuated by the asymmetrical power relations that underpin the international legal, economic, and political order – making the rebalancing of power dynamics another central theme of the Summit. 

The Dynamics of Power & Politics

The leitmotifs of power and politics, and the intimate links between the two, were threaded throughout the Summit. Participants reflected on where power takes root, who wields it, how it is exercised, and to what effect. A notable spotlight was cast on the power of information, the increasing ‘marketization’ of BHR, and Global North/South divides that privilege certain ways of knowing and perpetuate inequalities between business, academia, advocates, and proxy accountability holders on one side and communities on the other. The Summit also grappled with the epistemic injustices that result from corporate and practitioner power over discourse and knowledge production, unravelling the far reaching impacts of narratives that  deny human rights holders of potent concepts to articulate their experiences.

The connections between politics and power were also evidenced in presentations that touched on the global arms trade and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Participants explored the roles played by corporate actors in volatile geopolitical contexts, delving into the moral and economic dimensions entwined in a company’s decision to either maintain or withdraw operations from an aggressor country. The responsibilities of business in times of conflict were further framed in light of inherently harmful products and business models that facilitate and exacerbate violence.  

The Value of Empirical Explorations

For participants, empirical research stood out as a potent tool to navigate the interconnected challenges of power imbalances and voices that have been neglected and marginalised. There was a collective aspiration to move beyond theory-heavy arguments and embrace the realm of observation and experience, acknowledging the invaluable insights that empirical research and professional experience can provide. Drawing from the unique contexts of Brazil, Australia, Ethiopia, Luxembourg, and beyond, scholars magnified crucial issues such as environmental and due diligence regulation; modern slavery; civil society participation; and the intersection of business and human rights in conflict zones.  

Presentations of empirical research proposals exploring adverse human rights impacts tied to mining operations in Brazil, the operations of pharmaceutical companies and monopsonic corporate power in agriculture were striking in their efforts to respond to the challenges of the marginalisation of rights holders and entrenched power imbalances. One empirical research project involved field work in a shale gas extraction operation in provincial China, looking at issues of accountability, politics, and processes for enabling dialogue between communities and businesses. Projects like these actively seek to reshape prevailing discourses by foregrounding empirical research methods and incorporating disciplines that have often been excluded from BHR academic debates and policy spaces.

Can we start a new BHR chapter already?

Discussants at the Summit were unflinching in their scrutiny of the validity, suitability, and overpromises of the discipline’s canonical tenets – power, accountability, fairness, responsibility, and ethics. The presented projects are proof of the emergence of a new generation of critical scholarship interested in questioning the underlying assumptions at the core of BHR as an academic discipline, broad social movement, and framework of regulatory and governance mechanisms.

As BHR scholarship continues to transcends academic and geographical boundaries, and critical perspectives are maturing and thriving, the stage appears to be set for a new era of practice and thought in the field.

Andrea Biswas-Tortajada

Zulay Buchs

Catherine McDonald

Suzanne Varrall