The new issue 6/2 (2005) of the zfwu has been released with the title “Human Rights and Business”

Content:

Corporate Human Rights Responsibilities
David Weissbrodt

This article begins with a discussion of why one should be concerned or at least interested in the human rights conduct of corporations. Hence, the first part of the article presents a couple of historical and current situations which require attention and standard-setting. The second part focuses on past efforts of international law and particularly international human rights law to deal with such non-state actors as corporations. The third part discusses five major attributes of the U.N. Human Rights Norms which built upon the previous efforts to deal with the human rights conduct of corporations. The fourth part traces the process by which the Norms were prepared and are now being considered by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The fifth part identifies three principal issues raised by the opponents to the Norms. And the article concludes with an account of how the Norms are already being used by businesses, mutual funds, and others.

Comment
Are “Human Rights” the “Business of Business”?
Klaus M. Leisinger

Voluntary or Mandatory: That is (Not) the Question. Linking Corporate Citizenship to Human Rights Obligations for Business
Florian Wettstein und Sandra Waddock

Human rights have traditionally been considered a domain of governments. The ongoing economic globalization, however, has rendered this state-centered view increasingly inadequate. In this contribution we will argue that also the powerful transnational corporations must bear more and more direct responsibility for the impact of their actions on human rights. Florian Wettstein and Sandra Waddock will first clarify the conceptual connection between existing approaches to corporate citizenship (CC) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the newly emerging “business and human rights” debate. Partly in contradiction to the “traditional” view on CSR/CC as a voluntary affair for business, we will then plea for mandatory human rights standards for corporations. However, human rights obligations are not always clear-cut and evident; especially so-called positive rights often create contingent and often highly ambiguous duties for many different actors. Therefore, we will argue CSR/CC can make a valuable contribution especially regarding the clarification of such imperfect obligations. Accordingly, the relation between voluntary and mandatory approaches must not be seen as a mutually exclusive one, but rather as inherently complementary.

Comment
‘Voluntary or Mandatory: That is (Not) the Question’. A Comment
Nicholas Howen

Menschenrechte und internationale Geschäftstätigkeit – Positionen und Ansätze zum Umgang mit einer regulativen und diskursiven Kluft
Bernhard Mark-Ungericht

Human Rights and International Business – Positions and Approaches to Deal with a Regulatory and Discoursive Gap

This article is based on two perspectives of the current situation. The first perspective portrays the idea that human rights and international business are not connected by regulatory mechanisms, while the second suggests that the obvious and ensuing gap is reflected in the realm of discourses: a neoliberal inspired discourse on the integration of Human Rights and International Business on the one side and a critical (activist) discourse on the impacts of International Business on the other. Both discourses frame the relation between International Business and International Human Rights according to their premises. Based on these two perspectives three approaches dealing with the attempt to integrate Human Rights into International Business will be discussed.