Business and Human Rights

Florian Wettstein is a professor of business ethics and Director of the Institute for Business Ethics at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Florian has published widely on topics at the intersection of corporate responsibility, business ethics, and business and human rights, and has been involved in numerous practical and policy initiatives and projects on those topics. He is the author of Multinational Corporations and Global Justice: Human Rights Obligations of a Quasi-Governmental Institution (2009) and Editor-in-Chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal (BHRJ).

"Until recently, human rights and business were perceived as two separate domains. Human rights, traditionally understood as a shield and protection for human beings against the abuse of governmental power and discretion were seen as of little direct implication for business. As a consequence, private actors like corporations were not systematically on the radar of human rights scholars. Vice versa, those concerned with corporations and corporate responsibility, both in practice and in theory, hardly adopted a human rights perspective. Human rights, for them, were a part of the larger legal, regulatory and policy frame within which corporate practices are taking place, but they were not themselves a part of corporate responsibility engagements. Hence, bringing business and human rights together has neither been intuitive for human rights scholars nor for corporate responsibility researchers"--

Preface; Boxes; 1. Introduction: learning and unlearning business and human rights; Part I. Foundations; 2. BHR: emergence and history of a movement; 3. A brief introduction of human rights; Part II. Setting the scene; 4. Corporate human rights violations: direct and indirect; 5. Corporate human rights violations: overview of issues; Part III. Corporate human rights responsibility; 6. Justification of corporate human rights responsibility; 7. Nature and extent of corporate human rights responsibility; 8. Operationalizing and implementing human rights responsibility at the corporate level; Part IV. Corporate human rights accountability; 9. Transnational governance and corporate human rights accountability: preliminary questions and foundational issues; 10. The un guiding principles on BHR: foundations, contemplations, critique; 11. Further international soft-law standards and voluntary initiatives; 12. Home state solutions; 13. International law-based solutions; Part V. Selected industries and emerging discussions; 14. Industry-specific issues and challenges; 15. Emerging discussions and narratives; 16. Conclusion: building back better; Helpful online resources and blogs on business and human rights; References of court cases; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.