Aims and objectives
This module is designed to look closely at the intersection among principles regulating human rights and related environmental interests on the one hand, and those regulating multinational commercial interests on the other. It will particularly highlight the contrast between the principles underlying commercial activity and the constraints of social and environmental justice.
The module focuses on the human rights responsibilities of private companies as well as those of the public and private institutions providing finance for projects aimed at development in various parts of the world. Throughout it examines the clash and complementarity between the core objectives of these institutions and the demands of human rights protection and the environmental sustainability. The tension between the public-private divide will be specifically addressed.
Outline
The module begins with a look at foundation principles in ethics that inform current views of corporate social responsibility. This is followed by a consideration of the applicability of the principles of international law to non-state actors involved in the economy. From there, attention turns to the responsibilities of multinational corporations and international financial institutions including the World Bank's International Finance Corporation; the private banks grouped together via the Equator Principles; and export credit agencies. This is followed by an examination of international instruments and mechanisms, public and private; voluntary and legally binding, which are specifically addressed to corporate behaviour. This includes The OECD Guidelines; the ILO Tripartite Declaration; the Draft UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and the UN's Global Compact.
The seminars aim to illustrate general policy considerations by working with concrete examples of corporate activity, testing them against the principles developed in the first part. It looks at problems of dividing responsibility for human rights and environmental concerns between host governments and private companies; at the impact corporate activity can have on policy choices by host governments; as well as at problems of corporate complicity with human rights abuses by host states. It considers cases in both national and international courts as well as investor-state arbitration.
Examples of cases are drawn from the recent work of the Essex Business and Human Rights Project (EBHR) http://www.essex.ac.uk/ebhr/. Students will have the possibility of involvement in the work of EBHR.
- Module Supervisor: Justin Poonjatt