The concept of a ‘safe harbour’ has been mentioned in several contexts during ongoing discussions around regulatory developments towards mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence (mHREDD) which continue at international, European and national levels. This article analyses the concept of a ‘safe harbour’ and how it relates to human rights due diligence (HRDD) as described in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). It discusses examples of other types of safe harbours which were recognized in legislation and case law; considers that a safe harbour could result in a ‘tick-box’ approach; highlights the implications for access to remedy; and distinguishes a safe harbour exemption from a defence of having undertaken HRDD in accordance with an expected standard of conduct.

There has been tremendous momentum in adoption of business and human rights regulations, specifically national legislation that mandate human rights due diligence. While these laws have been heralded as the torchbearers of progress, this article approaches national legislation on business and human rights by placing them in context of a North–South divide through a Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) lens. It looks at the form of regulation of transnational corporations (national/international) – not the substance – and illustrates the neo-colonial flavour of these laws by diving into the narrative behind the adoption of the French devoir de vigilance law. It illustrates that the French law can also be read as an attempt to universalise European values while reinforcing power hierarchies. The claim of this article is that national legislation cannot be a substitute for a treaty but only a path towards one, because national legislation structurally lacks means to take the Global South participation seriously.

This article presents an empirical study of six grievance mechanisms in multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs). It argues that key characteristics of each grievance mechanism as well as the contexts in which they operate significantly affect human rights outcomes. However, even the most successful mechanisms only manage to produce remedies in particular types of cases and contexts. The research also finds that it is prohibitively difficult to determine whether ‘effective’ remedy has been achieved in individual cases. Furthermore, the key intervention by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), to prescribe a set of effectiveness criteria for designing or revising MSI grievance mechanisms, itself appears ineffective in stimulating better outcomes for rights-holders. Drawing on these findings, the article reflects on the future potential and limitations of MSI grievance mechanisms within broader struggles to ensure business respect for human rights.

This paper presents an alternative epistemic worldview of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights (CR2R) as a norm. It examines how an Afrocentric interpretation of the CR2R norm can contribute to a relational system where corporations promote human rights in African host communities. It uses an African norm — Ubuntu — to reframe and reinterpret Pillar II in Afrocentric terms. It argues that this reframing is important for three reasons. First, Ubuntu reframing increases the CR2R norm’s intelligibility in Africa because it clarifies and contextualizes the term ‘respect’ used in Pillar II. Second, reframing the CR2R norm through Ubuntu fills the ethical gap in the interpretation of the CR2Rnorm. Third, an Ubuntu-inspired interpretation insulates the CR2R norm from some scholars’ critique that the CR2R norm’s scope is narrow because it only encourages MNCs to avoid infringing on the human rights of others without prescribing positive obligations. This paper then examines channels through which Ubuntu can influence the CR2R norm.

There is growing recognition of the need for a more ‘socially just’ implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) that embraces bottom-up, rights holder-driven approaches.1 An initiative is underway to articulate a set of community principles to supplement the three-pillar ‘respect, protect, remedy’ framework of the UNGPs, with a fourth pillar that underscores the importance of rights holder agency to the effective implementation of human rights protections.2 With regard to access to remedy, the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights has emphasized that ‘rights holders should be central to the entire remedy process’,3 and others have made similar observations, encouraging a ‘co-design’ process.4

Economic inequality, in particular vertical inequality in income and wealth within countries,1 has widened considerably with potentially dramatic economic, political and social consequences.2 Reflecting the need for urgent action on inequality, the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10 focuses on the reduction of various forms of inequality within and between countries.3 In that context, a number of recent interventions have sought to highlight how business affects inequality,4 recognizing that businesses have a central function in creating and distributing economic value in society. Significantly, two emerging initiatives, the Task Force on Inequality-Related Financial Disclosure (TIFD)5 and the Business Commission to Tackle Inequality (BCTI) by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development,6 seek to notably identify business impacts on inequality and provide approaches for their alleviation.

On 24 June 2022, the Contracting Parties of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) finalized discussions on the modernization of the treaty. After fifteen rounds of negotiations, an agreement in principle was reached to be adopted by the Energy Charter Conference on 22 November 2022 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.1 The ECT, adopted in 1994, establishes a legal framework that aims to promote international cooperation in the energy sector.2 It has a membership of 53 countries primarily from Europe and Central Asia, as well as the European Union (EU) and the European Atomic Energy Community. In recent years, the ECT attracted widespread public attention due to its impact on states’ environmental and climate policies. Particularly, the treaty’s provisions on investment protection, with investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) at the centre, allow foreign investors in the energy sector to challenge adverse state action before international arbitration and claim compensation for measures affecting their business activities. Fossil fuel investors have increasingly used the ECT to challenge environmental and climate measures, such as phasing out coal-fired power generation, banning offshore oil drilling in coastal areas, and prohibiting gas fracking projects. Such cases have fuelled concerns regarding the abilities of governments to roll-out large-scale climate action. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that international investment agreements (IIAs) like the ECT could ‘be used by fossil-fuel companies to block national legislation aimed at phasing out the use of their assets’.3 With some of these damage claims running into billions of euros, the ECT enables fossil fuel investors to offload the costs and risks associated with their affected assets onto society at large in the face of necessary climate action. This would go, in the words of the editorial board of the Financial Times, against the ‘heart of the capitalist social contract’ and the ‘ability of markets to deal adequately with the challenge of climate change’.4

In October 2020, the Government of Japan formulated a National Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights in response to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and ensuing greater international awareness of violations of human rights by corporations.1 In the NAP, the government of Japan stated that on the basis of the UNGPs, it expects companies to (i) formulate human rights policies, (ii) conduct due diligence with respect to human rights, and (iii) establish grievance mechanisms.2 In order to achieve these goals, businesses need to understand whether and how they are violating human rights and prepare appropriate solutions. Whistleblowers play a crucial role in this process.

As the climate and biodiversity crises gain unprecedented attention, many governments across the global north are taking legislative steps to address deforestation in supply chains linked to their domestic consumption or commercial activities, among them, the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU).1

August 16th, 2022 marked the 10th anniversary of the Marikana Massacre in Rustenburg, South Africa. This was the worst incident of mass killing by police since the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 in the heyday of the Apartheid regime. In the first days of August 2012, workers at Lonmin plc, a platinum group metals mining company, went on a wildcat strike demanding a minimum salary of 12500 Rand, circa 800 USD, per month and protesting against the poor living conditions they and their families where subjected to in the Marikana vicinity, an area 100 km north of Johannesburg where the mine is located. As days passed, tension escalated leading to the killing of ten people, including three non-striking workers, two security guards, three striking workers, and two police officers. Various attempts to facilitate negotiations with striking workers were turned down by Lonmin management. Instead, Lonmin managers actively engaged in communications with senior political leaders, police officers, and state mining officials to frame the situation as one that required strong and decisive police intervention.1