The Business And Human Rights Landscape

Associating social justice with landscape is not new, yet the twenty-first century's heightened threats to landscape and their impact on both human and, more generally, nature's habitats necessitate novel intellectual tools to address such challenges. This book offers that innovative critical thinking framework. The establishment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948, in the aftermath of Second World War atrocities, was an aspiration to guarantee both concrete necessities for survival and the spiritual/emotional/psychological needs that are quintessential to the human experience. While landscape is place, nature and culture specific, the idea transcends nation-state boundaries and as such can be understood as a universal theoretical concept similar to the way in which human rights are perceived. The first step towards the intellectual interface between landscape and human rights is a dynamic and layered understanding of landscape. Accordingly, the 'Right to Landscape' is conceived as the place where the expansive definition of landscape, with its tangible and intangible dimensions, overlaps with the rights that support both life and human dignity, as defined by the UDHR. By expanding on the concept of human rights in the context of landscape this book presents a new model for addressing human rights - alternative scenarios for constructing conflict-reduced approaches to landscape-use and human welfare are generated. This book introduces a rich new discourse on landscape and human rights, serving as a platform to inspire a diversity of ideas and conceptual interpretations. The case studies discussed are wide in their geographical distribution and interdisciplinary in the theoretical situation of their authors, breaking fresh ground for an emerging critical dialogue on the convergence of landscape and human rights.

This is the first book offering a comprehensive historical and contemporary analysis of the emerging business and human rights field.

"The adoption of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 marked a watershed moment, establishing the first global standards for preventing human rights abuses by business. In light of this paradigm shift, The Business and Human Rights Landscape offers the most comprehensive analysis to date of the current legal framework. Its essential research tools include in-depth explorations of the UN Guiding Principles from both theoretical and practical standpoints, with case studies of the Rana Plaza building collapse and Kenyan resource extraction. Bookending current analyses are accounts of business and human rights from a historical perspective (discussing the colonial slave trade) and using a forward-looking lens (analyzing labor's role). Bringing together scholars from across the globe, this book represents essential reading for anyone interested in the past, present, or future of business and human rights"--

In a global economy, multinational companies often operate in jurisdictions where governments are either unable or unwilling to uphold even the basic human rights of their citizens. The expectation that companies respect human rights in their own operations and in their business relationships is now a business reality that corporations need to respond to. Business and Human Rights: From Principles to Practice is the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary textbook that addresses these issues. It examines the regulatory framework that grounds the business and human rights debate and highlights the business and legal challenges faced by companies and stakeholders in improving respect for human rights, exploring such topics as: the regulatory framework that grounds the business and human rights debate, challenges faced by companies and stakeholders in improving human rights, industry-specific human rights standards, current mechanisms to hold corporations to account, future challenges for business and human rights. With supporting case studies throughout, this text provides an overview of current themes in the field and guidance on practical implementation, demonstrating that a thorough understanding of the human rights challenges faced by business is now vital in any business context.

Explores the conceptual and legal underpinnings of global governance approaches to business and human rights, with an emphasis on the UN Guiding Principles.

The spotlight of global scrutiny has shone particularly brightly on corporations’ adverse impacts on human rights in recent years. Corporations make up more than two-thirds of the world’s top economies today, and so rightly they are being called to account for their impacts on society and the communities in which they operate. The Business of Human Rights demystifies the relevance of human rights for business, explaining how the corporate responsibility to respect human rights under the UN Guiding Principles can be implemented in practice. It provides a straightforward, practical guide that can be easily read and interpreted by managers to help businesses navigate this complex area of legislation and "soft" law to fulfil their responsibilities. It explains the potential legal, financial and reputational implications for corporations and the steps they need to take to address them. The book tracks some of the major global developments in business and human rights, including the emergence of foreign, transnational, and international law and the proliferation of multi-stakeholder initiatives on business and human rights. Case studies from a range of sectors and industries – such as extractives, apparel, fast-moving consumer goods, electronics, and banking and finance – illustrate the enormous risks and opportunities human rights pose for business in practice. The Business of Human Rights will equip corporate executives, sustainability practitioners, academics, students, and anyone interested in business’s impacts on society with the essential information and tools they need to quickly come up to speed with the rapidly evolving area of business and human rights.

Welcome to Humanising the Bottom Line: A Guide to Balancing Business Success and Human Rights. This e-book is a useful guide for anyone interested in learning about the intersection between business and human rights. The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of the human rights landscape in the context of business operations and to provide practical solutions for businesses to ensure that they are respecting human rights. Business and human rights refer to the relationship between businesses and their impact on human rights. This is a complex and multifaceted issue that has become increasingly important in recent years. The importance of business and human rights cannot be overstated. Business operations can have a significant impact on the human rights of individuals and communities. It is therefore essential that businesses take steps to ensure that their operations do not violate human rights. In the first section of this book, we will provide an overview of the business and human rights landscape. We will explore the historical background of business and human rights, the international frameworks and standards for business and human rights, and the concept of corporate social responsibility and sustainability. We will also examine case studies of human rights violations by businesses to illustrate the importance of this issue. The second section of the book will focus on specific human rights issues in business operations. We will examine the issue of modern slavery, including forced labour, child labour, human trafficking, and slavery and servitude. We will also explore the environmental impacts of business operations on human rights, including the right to a clean and healthy environment. Discrimination and equality in the workplace, community and land rights, and privacy and data protection will also be discussed. In the third section of the book, we will provide solutions for businesses to ensure that they are respecting human rights. These solutions include corporate responsibility and accountability, human rights audit, human rights due diligence, mainstreaming human rights strategy into corporate strategic planning (ABCD - Backcasting from Human Rights Principles), stakeholder engagement and consultation, remediation for human rights abuses, and multi-stakeholder initiatives and partnerships. In the conclusion of the book, we will summarise the key points of the book and discuss the future of business and human rights. We will also issue a call to action for businesses, governments, and civil society to take steps to ensure that business operations respect human rights. This book can be an important resource for anyone interested in learning about business and human rights. It provides a comprehensive overview of the issues and challenges facing businesses and provides practical solutions for businesses to ensure that they are respecting human rights. The resources section at the end of the book provides additional reading and resources for readers interested in learning more about business and human rights.

Children’s rights law is often studied and perceived in isolation from the broader field of human rights law. This volume explores the inter-relationship between children’s rights law and more general human rights law in order to see whether elements from each could successfully inform the other. Children’s rights law has a number of distinctive characteristics, such as the emphasis on the ‘best interests of the child’, the use of general principles, and the inclusion of ‘third parties’ (e.g. parents and other care-takers) in treaty provisions. The first part of this book questions whether these features could be a source of inspiration for general human rights law. In part two, the reverse question is asked: could children’s rights law draw inspiration from developments in other branches of human rights law that focus on other specific categories of rights holders, such as women, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, or older persons? Finally, the interaction between children’s rights law and human rights law – and the potential for their isolation, inspiration or integration – may be coloured or determined by the thematic issue under consideration. Therefore the third part of the book studies the interplay between children’s rights law and human rights law in the context of specific topics: intra-family relations, LGBTQI marginalization, migration, media, the environment and transnational human rights obligations.