Human Rights and Corporations

The erstwhile unlikely coupling of human rights and corporations is now a typical feature of corporate/community relations. High-profile corporate infringements of human rights, the rise and rise of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and on-going efforts to regulate corporate behaviour through legal regimes, at both domestic and international levels, have spawned a mountain of academic literature and commentary. This volume assembles the leading essays from this body of work. Together they frame the relationship between human rights and corporations by charting its history and salient features; tackle the conceptual perspectives of the relationship and detail the practice, problems and potential of the relationship.

Contents: Introduction; Part I Framing the Relationship: Human rights and multinationals: is there a problem?, Peter Muchlinski; The amorality of profit: transnational corporations and human rights, Beth Stephens; Human rights codes for transnational corporations: what can the Sullivan and MacBride principles tell us?, Christopher McCrudden; Business and human rights, David Weissbrodt; Multinational corporations and the ethics of global responsibility: problems and possibilities, Mahmood Monshipouri, Claude E. Welch Jr and Evan T. Kennedy; Human rights: the emerging norm of corporate social responsibility, Claire Moore Dickerson. Part II Conceptual Perspectives: Protecting human rights in a globalized world, Dinah Shelton; Corporations and human rights: a theory of legal responsibility, Steven R. Ratner; Meta-regulation: legal accountability for corporate social responsibility, Christine Parker. Part III Practice, Problems and Potential: The sangam of foreign investment, multinational corporations and human rights: an Indian perspective for a developing Asia, Surya Deva; The UN human rights norms for corporations: the private implications of public international law, David Kinley and Rachel Chambers; Engage, embed, and embellish: theory versus practice in the corporate social responsibility movement, John M. Conley and Cynthia A. Williams; Separating myth from reality about corporate responsibility litigation, Harold Hongju Koh; The interface between globalisation, corporate responsibility and the legal profession, Halina Ward; Index.

David Kinley is a Professor of Human Rights Law, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, Australia.