Experimentalist Global Governance and the Case for a Framework Convention Based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

Abstract

Building on earlier work this chapter further develops one argument for a BHR framework convention based on the UNGPs and BHR national action plans. Specifically, it contends that support for a framework convention can be found in the theoretical-normative concept of “global experimentalist governance” (de Burca, Keohane, and Sabel, 2014). Section 2 outlines the concept of GXG and its application to human rights treaty regimes. Section 3 argues that four preconditions for an effective experimentalist regime, as described by scholars, might be satisfied for a BHR framework convention based on the UNGPs and NAPs. Section 4 sketches some elements a BHR framework convention could include, consistently with GXG precepts. Section 5 concludes.