Abstract
AbstractTen years after the publication of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), implementation efforts are in full swing. Companies in particular have used their existing corporate social responsibility (CSR) structures to make sense of and implement Pillar II of the UNGPs. This process has led to a co-optation of the business and human rights (BHR) agenda. One manifestation of such co-optation is the instrumentalization of CSR to confront and undermine the growing trend towards binding BHR legislation. Accordingly, this contribution conceptualizes Pillar II implementation as a process of domestication, co-optation and confrontation of the BHR agenda. It makes sense of this process by juxtaposing it with long-standing critique against CSR put forth particularly by critical management scholars, raising the question whether CSR is indeed well-equipped to drive BHR implementation efforts within companies.
Highlights
Ten years after the publication of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), implementation efforts are in full swing
The year 2021 marks the tenth anniversary of the publication of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs)
Having been one of the main drivers of the business and human rights (BHR) agenda in the early stages of the implementation process, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has increasingly come to serve as a defence for corporations against the call for BHR legislation; put bluntly, CSR seems to have gone from friend to foe of the BHR agenda
Summary
The year 2021 marks the tenth anniversary of the publication of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). This has not yet significantly improved the situation of those whose human rights are most severely impacted by corporate activities on the ground It is this discrepancy between ambition and results that has recently led to a shift in implementation measures from predominantly voluntary initiatives to a push towards binding legislation. Having been one of the main drivers of the business and human rights (BHR) agenda in the early stages of the implementation process, CSR has increasingly come to serve as a defence for corporations against the call for BHR legislation; put bluntly, CSR seems to have gone from friend to foe of the BHR agenda This contribution attempts to capture this changing role of CSR and make conceptual sense of it, raising the question whether CSR is well-equipped to drive BHR implementation efforts within companies.
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