Hardening Soft Law Initiatives in Business and Human Rights

Abstract

In the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster as well as ongoing human rights abuses perpetuated by multinational corporations, the impetus for the business and human rights (BHR) movement continues to gain momentum. Business and human rights issues are no longer considered two distinct realms operating in isolation from one another but are rather seen as intertwined and in need of being holistically addressed. Nevertheless, despite the growing recognition of the importance for corporations to address human rights issues, responsibilities for corporations in this area have mainly been at the voluntary level. That is, corporate human rights obligations tend to be phrased in permissive rather than mandatory language, and enforcement of these voluntary obligations is either weak or, more likely, non-existent. For that reason, corporate human rights obligations are often termed ‘soft’ law. Recently, however, there have been attempts to ‘harden’ corporate human rights obligations. Several countries are currently negotiating a binding Business and Human Rights treaty which, on completion, would impose legally binding human rights obligations on multinational corporations. Efforts have also been made at the domestic level to harden business and human rights, with notable examples in the UK and France.