The right to housing is a key principle in international human rights law, meant to apply to everyone. However, it is often less accessible to vulnerable groups, especially immigrants.…
On June 1, 2023, Members of the European Parliament voted, with a large majority, in favour of new European rules on corporate sustainability due diligence.…
As the European Union’s three legislative bodies sit down to reconcile their proposals for a draft directive on corporate sustainability due diligence, legislators have a brand-new tool to support their negotiation: the newly updated and renamed OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises for Responsible Business Conduct (Guidelines).…
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it was laying off its AI ethics department, joining earlier cuts of ethicists at Meta, Google, Amazon and Twitter, and thereby setting a precedent for smaller tech companies with minimal financial resources that cutting corners in ethical and humane technological advancements is acceptable. …
In 2022, the European Commission (EC) proposed a new Regulation to ban products made using forced labour from the EU market.…
On February 3, 2014, I wrote here about the hell which workers at Rana Plaza had gone through, and finished by asking ‘Where do we go from here?’…
The Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 in Bangladesh exposed the severe safety issues and exploitative practices in global supply chains and the need for greater corporate liability.…
Zambia defaulted on its debt in November 2021 but has not yet reached an agreement with its creditors. Its president recently warned that this situation is hurting its citizens and undermining its democracy because “you cannot eat democracy”.…
human rights have not been given significant emphasis in the work of the UNSC and, furthermore, the practical links between the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm and human rights have remained relatively ambiguous
The concept of “human rights” is one that most educated people would likely claim to understand in a straightforward manner. Upon closer examination, however, scholars and politicians alike have engaged in fierce disagreements about its meaning and scope.…
In June, the judgment of the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in NESTLE USA, INC. v. DOE ET AL diminished the impact of the US Alien Torts Act on US based corporations with international supply chains.…
Women’s human rights continue to be restricted when it comes to equal access to leadership opportunities. Although there has been a global increase in women’s representation on corporate boardrooms, the number of women leading boardrooms across the globe still remains low.…
Newcastle United is now owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The UK media has almost universally condemned the takeover, and Newcastle fans support for the takeover, as paradigmatic examples of contemporary amorality, valuing football over human rights.…
Modest, humble, self-effacing, gentle, calm, good humored, and generous—and at the same time one of the most powerful intellects and impactful scholar-practitioners of his time: that was my experience of John Ruggie.…
Climate responses necessitate trade-offs, which may reinforce inequality. A gender and social equity approach is required to ensure that farmers with least resilience benefit from climate action through transformative climate adaptation.…
At the time when the world celebrates the 10th anniversary of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), their uptake in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe remains extremely low.…
Introduction The Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) is the independent accountability mechanism for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), private sector arms of the World Bank Group (WBG).…
We cannot solve problems with the same mindset that created them. -Albert Einstein As I sit to write this post on business and human rights in relation to conflict, the Palestinian people face yet another cycle of violence in their struggle for the right to self-determination, bringing forward the academic challenge that comes with trying to detach one’s self from a personal connection to a topic.…
The most recent Report of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights centered around business and human rights in conflict zones.…
Michael Scott – the incompetent but somehow highly successful manager at the heart of the US comedy The Office – once claimed, “Truth be told, I think I thrive under a lack of accountability.”…
Last October, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights launched its report ‘Business, human rights and conflict-affected regions: towards heightened action’.…
In July 2020, the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises (Working Group) issued its report, Business, human rights and conflict-affected regions: towards heightened action (A/75/212), which purports to clarify “the practical steps and outlines practical measures that States and business enterprises should take to prevent and address business-related human rights abuse in conflict and post-conflict contexts, focusing on heightened human rights due diligence and access to remedy” (p.…
On 22 April 2021, the Escazu Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean entered into force.…
In evangelising businesses to follow the UN Guiding Principles, the business and human rights movement has weighed the advantages of wielding the ‘business case’ versus the moral case.…
In this blog post we address a business and human rights issue that emerged from the recent report of Ireland’s Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes: that of corporate complicity in unlicensed clinical trials carried out upon incarcerated children.…
Today marks the sixth anniversary that the UK Modern Slavery Act (MSA) was enacted into law. The UK Government has recently announced proposed changes to the transparency in supply chains (TISC) provision of the MSA, which requires companies to detail their efforts to address modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains.…
This blog post announces the formation of a new special interest group at the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association, Human Rights and Political Economy, sketching some core interests of the field and why they matter today. …
On 1 January 2021 the ‘Regulation (EU) 2017/821 laying down supply chain due diligence obligations for Union importers of tin, tantalum and tungsten, their ores, and gold (3TGs) originating from conflict-affected and high-risk areas’ (CAHRAs) came into force.…
Environmental activist and indigenous leader Berta Cáceres – who in 2015 was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize – was assassinated in Honduras one year later, in 2016, for leading a protest against a hydroelectric power dam.…
Central and Eastern Europe has often been forgotten from business and human rights discourse. Unjustifiably so. Whereas some European countries have been the front-runners in developments in business and human rights standards, several challenges, including systematic business-related human rights abuses, have been prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).…
The late twentieth and early twenty first centuries have […] come to be widely touted as the era of human rights – a sentiment that captures both the preponderance of rights-talk and the immense promise that it invariably carries.…
Our 2019 article Rights Holders’ Participation and Access to Remedies: Lessons Learned from the Doce River Dam Disaster analyses remediation efforts that followed the collapse of the Fundão mining tailings dam in 2015 in Brazil which caused severe environmental, social, and economic losses.…
Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) was only on the statute book for 41 days and not yet in force when Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash introduced a ballot measure asking Californians to exempt them from this key piece of state employment legislation.…
As per 28 September, the total COVID-19 cases in Indonesia reached 278,722, following a single day increase of 3,509 in new cases.…
‘Big Data on BHR: Innovative Approaches to Analysing the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre Database’, a recently published article in the Business and Human Rights Journal, provides new insights into the study of business and human rights (BHR).…
Prior to the advent of the Factories Act of 1883, India had seen the worst of an unregulated labour market, a convenient indentured labour base for the British Empire which saw workers as dispensable commodities to its profit-making industries.…
As the Covid-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions put in place to attempt containment drag on, around 200,000 merchant seafarers are trapped aboard ships in violation of international law.…
Late last month, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) revoked its ban on imports from a Malaysian rubber gloves manufacturer accused of engaging in forced labour.…
The past years have seen a growing interest in the role of businesses in the protection of human rights and the environment.…
The global pandemic Covid-19 has turned the world upside down. Although it is not nearly over, it has already taught all of us: businesses, States and civil society, lessons beyond the outbreak to correct market failures and reshape the global economy to be more inclusive and less of a pollutant.…
The first United States (US) human trials of a coronavirus vaccine began in March. These trials are being conducted by a research organisation in Seattle. …
A wild animal displaced from its natural environment enters into contact with other animals in a crowded market. It becomes the vector of a virus, previously unknown to the human body, which is later passed on to humans and starts spreading from person to person.…
This post was originally published as part of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s Corporate Legal Accountability Quarterly Update which can be accessed here.…
The global pandemic has shaken up our societies and global economy. It will run deep in every society worldwide for months and years to come.…
Should Facebook users be treated equally? In late 2018, Mark Zuckerberg announced the creation of the Facebook Oversight Board (FOB), a purportedly independent global body that would adjudicate hard cases of content moderation on the platform.…
amfori is a global business association bringing together over 2,400 retailers, brands and associations from more than 40 countries. Our membership contains organizations of all sizes and sectors with a combined turnover of more than one trillion euros.…
In the context of corporate accountability and remedy, the inequality of arms is an oft-cited concern. A corporate opponent is likely to have more financial resources, organization and access to relevant information in the pursuit and course of conflict resolution.…
Experience in several states across Europe shows that the individual sense of whether COVID-19 represents an emergency situation that requires drastic, temporary, behavioral changes and social distancing (#stayathome) appears to differ starkly and, to a certain extent, is dependent on cultural patterns of socializing.…
As the world rushes to counter the continued spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), inevitably human rights will be put at odds with the protection of public health.…
As COVID-19 sweeps around the world, even initially recalcitrant governments are taking drastic action. This consists, in part, of protection for businesses, workers, homeowners and renters who may unable to meet their financial commitments and/or basic needs.…
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, on her visit to Italy in January 2020, outlined the issue of ‘caporalato’ as one of the main priorities of the Italian agricultural sector.…
It’s on everybody’s lips – Covid-19, more commonly referred to as the Coronavirus! Perhaps, like me, you have been glued to the media networks, social media channels and other news outlets trying to understand the scale and scope of one of the biggest surprise pandemics of our times.…
Following civil society organisations’ tireless efforts in Palestine and around the world, the UN Office of the High Commissioner fulfilled the mandate entrusted to it by the Human Rights Council in 2016 by recently publishing a list of 112 companies associated with Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).…
In the past few years there have been a range of national legislation and proposed legislation seeking to create corporate accountability for the human rights impacts of their activities.…
On 12 February 2020, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Commissioner) issued a report on all business enterprises involved in certain activities relating to Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) (Report).…
On 12 February 2020, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Commissioner) issued a report on all business enterprises involved in certain activities relating to Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) (Report).…
Corporate capture, ‘the means by which an economic elite undermine the realization of human rights and the environment by exerting undue influence over domestic and international decision-makers and public institutions,’ is a concept developed by ESCR-Net to understand the extent and mechanisms of corporate influence being exerted over State and international bodies in the modern neoliberal age.…
All eyes are on France as the enforcement mechanism set out in the French Law on the Corporate Duty of Vigilance (the “Vigilance Law”) is now set in motion.…
All eyes are on France as the enforcement mechanism provided in the French Law on the Corporate Duty of Vigilance (the “Vigilance Law”) is now set in motion.…
Rights of Victims The Revised Draft has evolved to a more robust victim-centric approach under Article 4 and other relevant provisions that expand the rights of victims.…
Introduction While under classical international law the State was the main subject of rights and duties, international human rights law has marked a shift from a State-centric to a victim-centric approach.…
In my last post, I discussed the number of academics at the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, and the lack of improvement in representation over the past three years.…
I was asked by someone associated with the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights’ organization if I would again do my count of academics and women academics because they thought it was interesting and important.…
Many know the International Review of the Red Cross as an academic publication dedicated to issues of international humanitarian law, policy and action produced by the ICRC and published by Cambridge University Press.,…
This post is part of the symposium that the BHRJ Blog is running on the revised binding treaty on business and human rights, which was released in July 2019.…
This post is part of the symposium that the BHRJ Blog is running on the revised binding treaty on business and human rights, which was released in July 2019.…
This post is part of the symposium that the BHRJ Blog is running on the revised binding treaty on business and human rights, which was released in July 2019.…
This post is part of the symposium that the BHRJ Blog is running on the revised binding treaty on business and human rights, which was released in July 2019.…
In the second of a two-part article, Doug Cassel outlines the five areas that need addressing to deliver on the promise of the new draft treaty.…
This post is part of the symposium that the BHRJ Blog is running on the revised binding treaty on business and human rights, which was released in July 2019.…
In the first of a two-part article, Doug Cassel raises certain arguments circling around the significant improvements made in the new draft.…
“This post is part of the symposium that the BHRJ Blog is running on the revised binding treaty on business and human rights, which was released in July 2019.…
The revised draft of the Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group’s business and human rights treaty released on July 16, 2019 is a significant improvement on the Zero Draft in terms of its structure, coherence, and its application to all business activity, not simply transnational.…
This post is part of the symposium that the BHRJ Blog is running on the revised binding treaty on business and human rights, which was released in July 2019.…
On July 16, 2019, the UN open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights (the “Working Group”) published a revised draft of a binding treaty on business and human rights.…
This post is part one of the first in a symposium that the BHRJ blog is running on the revised binding treaty on business and human rights, which was released in July 2019.…
This post is part one of the first in a symposium that the BHRJ blog is running on the revised binding treaty on business and human rights, which was released in July 2019.…
Indonesia is the only country in Southeast Asia to be a member of the G20 and, in the first quarter of 2019, was recorded as having the third-largest economic growth among the G20 countries, which was 5.07 percent.…
The way a state responds to alleged war crimes and human rights violations says much about its approach to international law, transparency, and redress for victims.…
For several decades, individuals and communities affected by climate change – as well as the lawyers, advocates and civil society organizations who represent them – have been using litigation as a strategic tool to hold corporations accountable for climate change-related human rights harms.…
On 24 May 2019, the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement (DBA) published a discussion paper on enabling remediation, which explores the role and responsibility of banks with regard to remedying human rights impacts.…
As the business and human rights discourse gains space in courts and transnational litigation in home countries rise to prominence, a question that arises is: what does this mean for businesses and their investors?…
This note introduces two cases, both concerned with liability under a duty of care of parent companies, the obligation of ‘due diligence’ in supply chain operations and the obstacles presented by the corporate structure.…
On 10 April 2019, the UK Supreme Court passed a landmark decision in Vedanta v Lungowe and allowed claims alleging severe environmental pollution in Zambia to be tried in England.…
Vedanta was an appeal of the Court of Appeal’s decision in respect of the liability of a UK parent company for the activities of its Zambian subsidiary.…
Slovenia prides itself on being among those countries committed to respecting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms. It has, for instance, in 2018 presided the United Nations Human Rights Council.…
On 10 April 2019, the UK Supreme Court gave its much anticipated decision in Vedanta v Lungowe as to whether English tort law meant a parent company can have a duty of care to victims of the actions by a foreign subsidiary.…
What is the common point between Shamima Begum, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliff and the one million British citizens in the EU in a Brexit context? Whatever their (many) differences, all raise the question of what a state’s obligations are towards its citizens abroad
On 9 December 2016, the Swiss government presented the Swiss National Action Plan on the implementation of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.…
National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights: An Initial Analysis of Plans from 2013-2018 Three years after the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the UN Human Rights Council called on all Member States to develop National Action Plans to support implementation of the UNGPs.*…
“Every day, people go missing amidst conflict and violence, or on the paths of exile, displacement or migration. Meanwhile, those whose loved ones went missing in the past continue to live with their pain, unable to heal.…
Over the last two days, my posts have highlighted the lack of academic speakers at the UN Forum. In this final post, I will address the problems with how women academics, in particular, have been included in the Forum.…
The honour of delivering one of the opening speeches at the Sanremo Roundtable on the topic of the deprivation of liberty and armed conflicts has made me stop and reflect on my own experiences as a young delegate doing detention visits.…
In my last post, I explained why academics are a distinct stakeholder group at the Forum, and what it is that we add for others.…
When twitter clued me in that the Speakers List was up for this year’s UN Forum on business and human rights, I was excited to see how many academics, and how many female academics, were on this year’s panel.…
As everyone throughout the world must have heard by now, Trump’s America is deeply divided. It’s not easy to unite Democrats, Republicans, and tech workers, but Google has managed to do just that.…
Introduction Clearcast’s decision to ‘ban’ the Christmas advertisement belonging to frozen food retailer Iceland backfired spectacularly last week with over 600,000 people signing an online petition calling for the ad to be allowed to air on TV.…
In March 2017, France took a landmark step to implement human rights due diligence through legally-binding legislation. This presents a unique opportunity to prevent risks of abuse linked to corporate activity while providing easier access to remedy for victims.…
The Business and Human Rights Journal (BHRJ) published its first issue in 2016, and since then it has established itself as the focal point for cutting-edge debate on a full range of business and human rights (BHR) issues.…
Human rights in war? For many, it creates a feeling of cognitive dissonance − the mental clash that occurs in our brain when right and wrong are placed in the same category. So it does for David Petraeus, the retired US Army general and former CIA director, whose critique of humanizing warfare through human rights law has brought the question to the fore again.
Archaeology and cultural heritage work have fully entered the digital age. Today, researchers rely on tools like 3D scanners, a variety of GIS software, and Lidar equipped drones to document the past in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago.…
Even though findings from genetics and other sciences unequivocally refute biological conceptions of race, this erroneous viewpoint remains widespread among the general public.…
The English language contains a wealth of insults and terms of abuse. Personal insults attack the core and immutable aspects of a person, such as their race, ethnicity, appearance, age, or a disability.…
A critical milestone for the archaeological ecosystem has been the publication this April of the National Archaeology Plan (NAP), part of a larger framework for cultural heritage that the Spanish Ministry of Culture has been developing for almost 40 years.…
The March article of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International is the first blog of the series. The blog is written by Dr Dami Ajayi, Specialty Doctor, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Trainee/Blog Editor, BJPsych International.…
Some disability-related names have dropped out of usage, because they are now considered to be offensive due to their origins. Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21) is one example.…
The paper “The role of premenstrual syndrome in hedonic hunger and food craving during the menstrual cycle“, published in Journal of Nutritional Science, has been chosen as the latest Editorial Highlight and is freely available to download for one month.…
How long will humankind survive? Besides the fact that we have been able to eliminate ourselves with nuclear weapons for decades, even without a third world war, the challenge to take care of the resources of our planet remains; we need to use them in a way that our children and their children can have a place on Earth as well. In this blog post Andreas Losch discusses his recent review article in the International Journal of Astrobiology, The need of an ethics of planetary sustainability
It is an article of faith among ordinary Filipinos that American troops will die with Filipino troops defending Philippine claims to the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea (SCS).…
Q&A with Editor-in-Chief of the Precision Medicine Journal, Dame Anna Dominiczak, for International day of Women and Girls in Science
More and more research is finding inflammation as a potential contributing factor towards to the development of various mental illnesses. A systematic review was conducted to determine the association between parasitic infection and mental illnesses in various African populations. Two parasite groups were evaluated; helminths and protozoans, and four mental illness classifications; depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, schizotypal disorders and unspecified mental illnesses.
The March article of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International is the first blog of the series. The blog is written by Dr Dami Ajayi, Specialty Doctor, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Trainee/Blog Editor, BJPsych International.…
This is the first post in our new series: “Conversations with Authors.” For our inaugural post, we asked Dr. Vesla Weaver to meet (virtually) with Dr.…
The English language contains a wealth of insults and terms of abuse. Personal insults attack the core and immutable aspects of a person, such as their race, ethnicity, appearance, age, or a disability.…
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Start the Week - ‘Left behind’, but not forgotten - BBC Sounds
Tom Sutcliffe with Paul Collier, Joanna Kusiak and Matthew Xia.
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