Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights: Is the Un Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights Up to the Task or is There a Need for a Treaty on Business and Human Rights?

Abstract

On the 26th of June 2014, in a sharply divided vote, the UN Human Rights Council adopted the proposal put forward by Ecuador and a host of other states and non-governmental organizations for a treaty on business and human rights despite the existence of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Against this background, this research seeks to critically assess whether the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is in fact inadequate to the extent that there is an urgency for an international treaty on business and human rights to be established by the international community. In bringing this to the fore, the research critically considers the arguments of those advocating for a treaty while advancing cogent and practical reasons as to why the call for a business and human rights treaty may be redundant and superfluous.It is vital to make the point that this research is by no means to be perceived as an obstacle to the proposal for a treaty on business and human rights. Rather, it is an attempt to establish a case that the UN Guiding Principles may perhaps be the best compromise that can ever be reached to impose obligations on non- state entities for human rights compliance since business corporations are not required to carry obligations under International Human Rights Law. The paper however concludes with a recommendation that the UNGP be transformed into an International Model Law on Business and Human Rights if there is any urgency for reform. This Model Law will serve as a standard setting and blue print that states could draw inspiration from when enacting laws, frameworks and policies that seeks to impose human rights obligations on business corporations within their respective domestic jurisdictions such as the DODD FRANK ACT in the United States; thus displacing the need perhaps for a treaty.