Corporate Accountability by Treaty: The New North American Rapid Response Labor Mechanism

Abstract

For several decades, civil society has sought to impose greater responsibility on companies for cross-border social wrongs. Multiple legal subfields and initiatives have emerged to take on this work: corporate social responsibility (CSR); business and human rights (BHR); responsible business conduct codes; environment, social, and governance (ESG) standards; and corporate due diligence schemes, among them. These many projects have culminated in national legislation across a range of jurisdictions imposing reporting and compliance requirements on companies, as well as in the development of soft law standards. Despite these efforts, international treaty initiatives to create binding obligations on companies and to require them to adopt certain human rights principles have made limited progress.