Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Business & Human Rights Law
- Cambridge Companions to Law
- The Cambridge Companion to Business & Human Rights Law
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Cases
- Abbreviations
- 1 Business and Human Rights
- 2 Reconciling International Human Rights with International Trade
- 3 Neoliberalism, State-Capitalism and European Ordo-Liberalism
- 4 Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility
- 5 The Role of Business in International Development and the Attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals
- 6 The Business Case for Human Rights
- 7 The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and Its Predecessors
- 8 The Regulatory Framework of Multinational Enterprises
- 9 The UN Global Compact and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Their Enforcement Mechanisms
- 10 Taxation and Business
- 11 Corporate Accountability for the Natural Environment and Climate Change
- 12 Corporate Accountability for Corruption and the Business Case for Transparency
- 13 Disability, Business and Human Rights
- 14 Gender, Business and Human Rights
- 15 The Business Sector and the Rights to Work and Just and Favourable Conditions of Work
- 16 Responsible Lending
- 17 Business and Human Rights Approaches to Intellectual Property
- 18 The Role of Human Rights in Investment Law and Arbitration
- 19 The Use of International Arbitration Tribunals for Business and Human Rights Disputes
- 20 Innovative Contractual Remedies with Indigenous Peoples
- 21 The Role of Ethics in Corporate Human Rights Impact Assessments
- 22 Addressing Human Rights Impacts in Sustainability Reporting
- 23 Leveraging the Consumer-Led Movement to Strengthen Sustainable Business
- 24 The Structural Complexity of Multinational Corporations and the Effect on Managing Human Rights Risks in the Supply Chain
- 25 Towards a UN Business and Human Rights Treaty
- Index
3 - Neoliberalism, State-Capitalism and European Ordo-Liberalism
Why Power Politics and ‘Constitutional Failures’ Undermine Economic Law and Human Rights
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 September 2021
- The Cambridge Companion to Business & Human Rights Law
- Cambridge Companions to Law
- The Cambridge Companion to Business & Human Rights Law
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Cases
- Abbreviations
- 1 Business and Human Rights
- 2 Reconciling International Human Rights with International Trade
- 3 Neoliberalism, State-Capitalism and European Ordo-Liberalism
- 4 Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility
- 5 The Role of Business in International Development and the Attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals
- 6 The Business Case for Human Rights
- 7 The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and Its Predecessors
- 8 The Regulatory Framework of Multinational Enterprises
- 9 The UN Global Compact and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Their Enforcement Mechanisms
- 10 Taxation and Business
- 11 Corporate Accountability for the Natural Environment and Climate Change
- 12 Corporate Accountability for Corruption and the Business Case for Transparency
- 13 Disability, Business and Human Rights
- 14 Gender, Business and Human Rights
- 15 The Business Sector and the Rights to Work and Just and Favourable Conditions of Work
- 16 Responsible Lending
- 17 Business and Human Rights Approaches to Intellectual Property
- 18 The Role of Human Rights in Investment Law and Arbitration
- 19 The Use of International Arbitration Tribunals for Business and Human Rights Disputes
- 20 Innovative Contractual Remedies with Indigenous Peoples
- 21 The Role of Ethics in Corporate Human Rights Impact Assessments
- 22 Addressing Human Rights Impacts in Sustainability Reporting
- 23 Leveraging the Consumer-Led Movement to Strengthen Sustainable Business
- 24 The Structural Complexity of Multinational Corporations and the Effect on Managing Human Rights Risks in the Supply Chain
- 25 Towards a UN Business and Human Rights Treaty
- Index
Summary
This chapter describes the moral and psychological ‘dilemmas’ of politicians, legal practitioners (like WTO lawyers, investment arbitrators) and businesses, driven all too often by self-interested utility maximization rather than by ‘inclusive, public reason’ accepting moral responsibility for reconciling all public and private interests on the basis of mutually agreed ‘principles of justice’ and human rights. It further illustrates these dilemmas by the US Trump administration’s neo-liberal, business-driven assault on UN and WTO law. It argues that power-politics and interest-group-politics underlying both neo-liberal and state-capitalist regulatory approaches undermine protection of human rights in IEL. It further describes the pragmatic ‘judicial common law approaches’ in WTO jurisprudence and investment adjudication, which focus on governmental rights to protect PGs (like public health, indigenous peoples’ rights, public morality, public order) and on agreed ‘constitutional principles of justice’ rather than on human rights. It concludes that Europe’s multilevel constitutionalism has better succeeded in ‘constitutionalizing’ common market law, the European Union’s (EU) external relations law and economic adjudication by protecting civil, political, economic and social rights within a ‘social market economy’ (article 3 of the Treaty on European Union [TEU]) embedded into ‘multilevel democratic constitutionalism’ and multilevel human rights law and adjudication.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Business and Human Rights Law , pp. 41 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021