Surya Deva

Human Rights Obligations of Business: The human rights obligations of business: a critical framework for the future

In the last decade or so, significant developments have taken place at the international level in articulating the human rights responsibilities of business and devising a regulatory framework which can provide effective remedies to victims of corporate human rights violations. One development that stands out is the work done by Professor John Ruggie, who was appointed in July 2005 as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises (SRSG). After submitting two reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), in 2006 and 2007, the SRSG proposed the ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework (Framework) in the 2008 report to provide ‘a common conceptual and policy framework, a foundation on which thinking and action can build’. After the Framework was accepted by the HRC and his mandate renewed for another three years, the SRSG focused upon ‘operationalising’ the Framework. This work culminated in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (GPs), which were submitted to the HRC in March 2011 and endorsed on 16 June 2011.

‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’: A Critique of the SRSG’s Framework for Business and Human Rights

This chapter seeks to critically evaluate the ‘conceptual and policy framework to anchor the business and human rights debate’ outlined by Professor John Ruggie — the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) on the issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises — in the April 2008 Report to the Human Rights Council (HRC).2 I will argue that although the Report lays down a few useful suggestions, it falls short of providing a robust framework that could be employed to promote corporate human rights responsibilities.