This paper analyses whether the implementation of business and human rights (BHR) frameworks in Colombia properly responds to the challenges posed by informal mining and gender-based violence and discrimination in the context of conflict and peacebuilding. The mining sector has been considered key in Colombia to promote economic growth, but it is also characterized by significant informality. Informal mining in Colombia has been linked to gender-based violence and discrimination. We contend that while informality has been identified as a substantial hurdle to the realization of human rights, BHR frameworks still fall short in addressing this aspect of business. By examining the specific measures Colombia has devised to implement BHR, including two National Action Plans on BHR, we demonstrate the urgency of addressing informal economies in BHR and to continue developing particular insights to properly protect, respect and remedy the human rights wrongs women experience in the context of informal mining.

This piece uses the Doce River case (2015) to illustrate the gendered impacts of the failure of corporate human rights due diligence. We also ask the question: would the Gender Dimensions of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights1 (Gender Guidance) have made a difference to the way women were treated in preventive measures taken and in the application of redress mechanisms? Taking this specific case, we seek to illustrate the importance of integrating gender into international business and human rights (BHR) frameworks if women’s rights are to be protected and respected in the context of business activities.

The business and human rights field and the international LGBTI human rights agenda have evolved almost entirely separately. The United Nations ‘Standards of Conduct for Business on Tackling Discrimination against LGBTI People’ (2017) is the primary effort to bridge this gap. Although drafted in a way that strongly aligns with the second pillar of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights on corporate responsibility, the dissemination of the Standards has mainly been untethered from the human rights framework and system. This article identifies the need to reassert the human rights foundations of the Standards and leverage their existing momentum to set out a more robust research and policy agenda for meaningfully accounting for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics in business and human rights frameworks. To that end, the article sets out priority areas for greater attention from researchers, decision-makers and advocates.

This special issue uses feminist perspectives to explore the field of business and human rights (BHR). Gendered inequalities, based on embodied, assigned or presumed gender identities and sexual orientations, have long been eclipsed from international law; the same has occurred in BHR. Rarely is gender addressed holistically to fully encompass the systemic discrimination and deep-seated patriarchal and neo-colonial structures that create and perpetuate inequalities. The contributions in this special issue challenge both the absence of attention to gender in BHR as well as conventional approaches used to address gendered inequalities within BHR discourses and frameworks. Three recurring themes characterize the special issue: (1) bodies and embodiment; (2) women’s positionality in the marketplace; and (3) borderlessness. Collectively, the contributions proffer feminist approaches to BHR that embed gender justice as foundational, rather than an afterthought.

Cross-border surrogacy is a global industry that offers intended parents options for family formation by providing foreign surrogate mothers remuneration, directly or via an intermediary, in excess of their actual out-of-pocket expenses. It is a multi-million-dollar business with no international regulation.1 In most countries, limited domestic regulation or oversight is in place. Many countries − such as Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong and South Africa − only permit altruistic surrogacy, while Germany and France ban surrogacy entirely.2 Fully legalized commercial surrogacy is the model followed in some states in the United States of America (USA), as well as Georgia and Ukraine.3 This unregulated cross-border market has produced a lucrative business, with surrogacy arrangements growing by nearly 1,000 per cent between 2006 and 2010.4 The for-profit surrogacy sector has expanded and fertility not-for-profit organizations have also entered the market.5

Corporate-led women’s empowerment initiatives appear, in their proactiveness, to be a welcome addition to a range of measures addressing adverse human rights impacts by business. This article questions the claim that these projects significantly advance women’s rights. Instead, they can be understood as a manifestation of what Catherine Rottenberg terms ‘neoliberal feminism’ with women at risk of being transformed into ‘gender capital’ for business gain. This article rejects the claim that empowerment can only be delivered by encouraging women into market-based work. Instead, it is argued that the corporate responsibility to respect the human rights of women can better be supported by reorienting business away from its preoccupation with delivering value for shareholders, towards an approach that values women’s unpaid socially reproductive labour.

Today’s children and youth1 are constantly exposed to a media deluge, fuelled by a globalized and ever-expanding media and information technology sector. The marketing and advertising industry has used this expansion in media platforms to more effectively target young consumers. Worldwide, 71 per cent of youth (aged 15–24 years) is online – the most connected age group – compared with 48 per cent of the total population, with regional variations.2 It is estimated that the amount spent globally on advertising targeting children in 2019 was US$4.3 billion – now one of the fastest-growing online audiences.3