As the smoke seems to have cleared by now, I thought it would be good to sum up the major developments about the Ruggie-Report on Business and Human Rights. Here is the report as well as the collated comments - a fascinating and in my opinion quite convincing example of multi-stakeholder statements.
In a nutshell: Business and government must adhere to three principles - the state duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties; the corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and develop more effective access to remedies, when human rights abuses have occured. Currently, business conduct produces what the report calls "governance gaps", refering to differences of corporate behavior overseas and back home. These gaps and legal loopholes provide "the permissive environment for wrongful acts by companies of all kinds without adequate sanctioning or reparation".
However, according to the Global Policy Forum and Misereor (download), the report does not have global governance solutions to the global governance gaps it notes. Instead, it is limited to what its author deems politically achievable. This above all includes incremental steps, such as Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) and export promoting via Export Credit Agencies (ECAs). On a positive note (made by Oxfam Australia), Ruggie is in favor of strengthening judicial capacities to hear complaints and enforce remedies against corporations, thus demanding a stronger role for government. Even stronger, Ruggie states the opportunity and in fact necessity that corporate misconduct should be dealt within criminal courts such as the ICC - a primer in regards to business responsibilities. Still, Ruggie categorically rejects the UN Norms or any other global legal instrument to establish a fixed framework of human rights duties of corporations.
A critical look by Ethical Corporations' Peter Davis led to a raging response by Professor Ruggie. So maybe the smoke has not cleared after all - which might not be such a bad thing in any case, as it will at least ensure that - and this is on what most stakeholders agree - the work goes on ...
Kommentare