The take-up of mandatory human rights due diligence (HRDD) initiatives by states is continuously gaining momentum. There are now numerous states adopting some form of HRDD laws. While corporations being duly diligent in respecting human rights is a positive step towards addressing problems of business and human rights, these HRDD initiatives on their own may only be a form of window-dressing, that is, enabling states to put a smart spin on their efforts to address business and human rights issues without addressing some of the root causes of that predicament. As a result, HRDD laws are likely to be a helpful, but insufficient tool for addressing corporate abuse of human rights. One reason for this is because the root cause of many business and human rights problems is the structural elements and goals of corporate law facilitates corporate violations of human rights. So long as states fail to transform the way in which corporations operate – in part, by reconceptualizing corporate law – even the best drafted HRDD laws will be inadequate to halt corporate harms.

The scale and scope of the climate crisis and its drastically worsening impacts means that even as a ‘climate due diligence’ obligation is increasingly taking shape as a dimension of human rights due diligence, there is also growing evidence of the limitations of this emerging norm. This article provides four critiques of climate due diligence based on its insufficiency, its conceptual ambiguity, its operational limitations, and its structural limitations. It argues that these critiques could be addressed by regulatory reform that draw clear ‘red lines’ based on the need to prevent the development of any new fossil fuel and address the ‘corporate capture’ of regulatory institutions by the fossil fuel industry. Additionally, it calls for reparations to ensure effective access to a remedy for existing and potential future climate-related human rights impacts that business has caused or contributed to.

There is currently disagreement in the international sports world about whether Russian and Belarusian athletes should be admitted to international competitions. While initially proposing to ban these athletes, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is now recommending that sports federations readmit Russian and Belarusian athletes under certain conditions. The IOC believes that this is unavoidable in order to respect human rights. Sports federations are invoking their autonomy on this issue, with some following the IOC’s advice, some maintaining a ban, and others allowing unconditional participation. This piece seeks to correct the IOC’s interpretation of the applicable human rights standard. It asserts that sporting bodies must respect human rights, and that the principles of autonomy and neutrality of sport must be considered in light of internationally recognised human rights standards. If these are used as a yardstick, it becomes clear that collective exclusion can be justified in the extreme case of a war of aggression.

This article analyses a domestic litigation matter seeking to establish accountability for air pollution-related human rights violations. It examines how the judiciary applied national and international law to dismiss the case on procedural grounds. It argues that the domestic case deserves careful reading for a number of reasons that can be distilled into two premises. Firstly, the national legal framework and its respective judicial interpretation impede access to justice for victims of state and/or corporate human rights violations. Secondly, it is essential that the state develops laws and policies in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which would allow claimants to focus their argumentation on material, rather than procedural issues relevant to proving the merits of the case.

This piece analyses the recent judgment from the Makhanda High Court in Sustaining the Wild Coast NPC v Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy setting aside the decision to grant Shell and Impact Africa an exploratory right. Shell and Impact Africa intended to conduct a seismic survey along South Africa’s Wild Coast. Such a survey stood to have a substantial impact on the rights and interests of several local communities residing along the coastline. Because Shell, Impact Africa and the Director-General of the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy failed to consider these rights and interests, the court decided to overturn the decision granting the companies their exploratory right. To this end, the judgment provides a powerful vindication of the rights of local communities, illustrating what is possible when regulatory schemes are applied purposively and not as a mere box-ticking exercise.

Since 2017, the government of the People’s Republic of China has heightened repression of Uyghur and other minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Repressive tactics involve family separations, mass incarceration, forced labour and cultural indoctrination. This has been accompanied, in recent years, with an aggressive industrialization of the area which relies heavily on the forced labour of Uyghur and other minorities. The automotive industry, in particular, has expanded into the region. This piece describes China’s push of heavy industry into XUAR and recent findings by Sheffield Hallam University and NomoGaia of abuses against Uyghurs and their links to the global automotive sector. It then explains the methodology employed by NomoGaia in its co-authored report with scholars from Sheffield Hallam University for linking abuses in the XUAR to global brands, and proposes a way forward for the industry.

The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights conceive of human rights due diligence (HRDD) as covering potential impacts across value chains, including downstream. The proposed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the revision process of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises have sparked renewed discussion on how and whether companies should conduct HRDD downstream to identify and prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts. Whilst some debate has occurred previously on downstream HRDD, this has predominantly centred on specific sectors, products and services where the links to egregious human rights harms may be more readily identifiable. This piece seeks to inform the current debate by broadening the examples of sectors, products and services and current business practice which demonstrate the critical need for, and ability of, companies to consider human rights risks downstream.

This DiF paper analyses the 2021 Consultations for Central & Eastern Europe and Central Asia, conducted as part of the process underlying the United Nations Working Group ‘Report on human rights-compatible international investment agreements’. These consultations led to three unique conclusions concerning International Investment Agreements (‘IIAs’), which were absent in other consultations: (i) the ‘regulatory chill’ caused by IIAs with respect to human rights regulations is moot in authoritarian and ‘hybrid’ regimes in this region, (ii) IIAs tend to be perceived in this region as tools to protect human rights, which can spill over to other areas of socio-economic life, and as a source of inspiration and a model for building similar protections in such other areas, and with the potential to (iii) have a positive impact on the development of domestic laws (and their relationship with the rule of law and good governance reforms in developing host states).

This article examines the under-researched, inter-connected issues of substantive remedy and a role for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) National Contact Points (NCPs) to complement judicial remedy regimes involving civil liability for companies in home-state jurisdictions. Even where access to judicial procedural remedy exists, it need not ensure substantive remedy. Legal and economic resource-based power-disparities between parties can reduce victims’ opportunities to present and argue their case; and courts offer limited substantive remedy options compared with the types listed by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The article argues that combining access to NCPs and judicial remedy offers important opportunities to address well-recognized challenges for victims’ access to substantive remedy, especially with strong NCPs. NCPs can operate in ways that courts normally cannot, to help give victims voice and a choice of substantive outcome. The European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) proposal serves as a cue for the analysis. However, the issue is relevant for any OECD member or the OECD Guidelines adherent state.

Governments sometimes adopt policies that are not aligned with their preferences or have not come onto their agendas when doing so is linked to a reward. International organizations can therefore set conditions for coveted membership that include adopting new human rights and regulatory policies. As international organizations increasingly converge around the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, how might they promote national uptake of these guidelines? This article considers the prospects of accession conditionality in answering this question. The focus of the article is on European Union and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) expansion in Central and Eastern Europe, where uptake of business and human rights policies remains comparatively low. The article argues that while these organizations increasingly include business and human rights conditionalities in accession negotiations, there remains significantly greater scope for promoting the Guiding Principles.

This paper analyses five constitutional developments in Central and Eastern Europe that can impact the domestic implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Using Czechia, Poland and Slovenia as examples, the paper highlights four potential drivers, namely: (1) the process of constitutionalizing human rights; (2) the proliferation of the doctrine of horizontal effect of constitutional rights; (3) the constitutional legitimacy of state intervention in the free market economy; and (4) the mechanism of judicial review. Furthermore, the author underlines the most significant challenge, which is increasing resistance to international norms in some countries, e.g., Poland. The paper concludes that the jurisprudence of the constitutional courts can facilitate the domestic implementation of the UNGPs, particularly Pillars I (State duty to protect human rights) and III (access to remedy).

This article discusses the relatively new phenomenon of corporate activism concerning the LGBT+ community in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland. It highlights how companies use various forms of corporate activism to show support and solidarity with LGBT+ people, especially during Pride Month. The authors note that there is a need to understand how these actions are perceived by civil society organizations (CSOs) that support LGBT+ people. To address this issue, a qualitative study was conducted to gather the perceptions of 11 CSO representatives from different organizations on the activities undertaken by companies for LGBT+ groups. The study intended to explore whether CSOs identified the support provided by businesses as activities to protect human rights, which business activities were valued most by the LGBT+ community, and what business actions in the public sphere are expected.

The UN Guiding Principles (UNGPs) and their concept of human rights due diligence (HRDD) cannot succeed in their current form, because they reify neoliberalism’s public/private divide. This article establishes this argument across historical, theoretical, and normative dimensions, and charts a new way forward. The UNGPs’ separation of the ‘state duty to protect’ from the ‘corporate responsibility to respect’ reflects a contestable conception of companies as private actors: free to act/transact in any way that is not harmful. This is a problem because harm is often invisible, even when taking an active due-diligence approach. To resolve this, HRDD practices must also be based on the positive value of equality. However, businesses are more than mere agents; they also coordinate production and enable social connections. These structural features reveal a ‘missing fourth pillar’ of the UNGPs: a collective political responsibility to challenge and change our current world order.

This article aims to highlight peculiarities relating to the realization of the state duty to protect human rights during the crisis situation after the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus. It proposes that we engage more seriously with the context of a strong authoritarian state, which does not have people’s protection as a priority and deliberately involves business in human rights violations. Such a context is at odds with the more often presumed model in the BHR discussion: a strong business and a weak state that cannot protect its people. Two systemic factors, which stem from the authoritarian nature of the Belarusian political regime and which worsened during the crisis are discussed in the context UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: the use of business as a tool to achieve political goals and the dependence of all institutions in the country on the authorities. One of the key conclusions of the article is that the Belarusian crisis, aggravated by the complicity of Belarus in the Russian aggression, prompts businesses to adopt a new optic on human rights due diligence and to assess their long-term risks and strategies in authoritarian countries. At the very least there is an awareness among businesses of the direct link between political and human rights risks.

There has been tremendous momentum in adoption of business and human rights regulations, specifically national legislation that mandate human rights due diligence. While these laws have been heralded as the torchbearers of progress, this article approaches national legislation on business and human rights by placing them in context of a North–South divide through a Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) lens. It looks at the form of regulation of transnational corporations (national/international) – not the substance – and illustrates the neo-colonial flavour of these laws by diving into the narrative behind the adoption of the French devoir de vigilance law. It illustrates that the French law can also be read as an attempt to universalise European values while reinforcing power hierarchies. The claim of this article is that national legislation cannot be a substitute for a treaty but only a path towards one, because national legislation structurally lacks means to take the Global South participation seriously.

August 16th, 2022 marked the 10th anniversary of the Marikana Massacre in Rustenburg, South Africa. This was the worst incident of mass killing by police since the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 in the heyday of the Apartheid regime. In the first days of August 2012, workers at Lonmin plc, a platinum group metals mining company, went on a wildcat strike demanding a minimum salary of 12500 Rand, circa 800 USD, per month and protesting against the poor living conditions they and their families where subjected to in the Marikana vicinity, an area 100 km north of Johannesburg where the mine is located. As days passed, tension escalated leading to the killing of ten people, including three non-striking workers, two security guards, three striking workers, and two police officers. Various attempts to facilitate negotiations with striking workers were turned down by Lonmin management. Instead, Lonmin managers actively engaged in communications with senior political leaders, police officers, and state mining officials to frame the situation as one that required strong and decisive police intervention.1

Since their adoption, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights have become crucial to intensify actions to protect human rights in the context of business conduct. Numerous countries, including Poland, have adopted National Action Plans (NAPs). Taking into account the years that have passed, it is worth assessing the implementation of their goals. Guidelines for the preparation of NAPs on business and human rights of the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights (UNWG) are helpful in assessing the Polish NAPs. This Development in the Field piece concludes that every NAP should begin with an assessment that would help identify areas where there is a need to implement necessary policies. Such an assessment could be used to compare the initial stage with future achievements. It should rely on clear milestones mentioned in NAPs, and on key performance indicators to assess effectiveness while also relying on inclusive decision-making processes. Unfortunately, this was not the case with the two Polish NAPs.

In October 2020, the Government of Japan formulated a National Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights in response to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and ensuing greater international awareness of violations of human rights by corporations.1 In the NAP, the government of Japan stated that on the basis of the UNGPs, it expects companies to (i) formulate human rights policies, (ii) conduct due diligence with respect to human rights, and (iii) establish grievance mechanisms.2 In order to achieve these goals, businesses need to understand whether and how they are violating human rights and prepare appropriate solutions. Whistleblowers play a crucial role in this process.

The increasing focus on business and human rights (BHR) in civil society and policymaking has not been matched by research on corporate actions to respect and protect human rights. The lack of research on BHR is especially acute outside of Western Europe and Anglo-centric contexts. This paper seeks to investigate how the largest Russian firms conceptualize and fulfil their human rights obligations under the UN Guiding Principles and the extent to which internationalization of those firms may have impacted these behaviours. I use a unique dataset created from a sample made of the 100 largest firms listed on the Moscow Stock Exchange. Using the theoretical construct of institutional conflict, I find that cross-listing on other stock exchanges and the extent to which firms frame their broader social responsibility issues as ‘sustainability’ or ‘sustainable development’ rather than ‘corporate social responsibility’ has a substantial impact on firm attention to human rights. While this attention is encouraging, firm disclosure of actions taken to mitigate against violations and protect human rights is extremely limited and the strength of domestic institutional pressures has resulted in very little firm action in the face of the extreme and widespread human rights violations being committed in Ukraine by Russia.

On 24 June 2022, the Contracting Parties of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) finalized discussions on the modernization of the treaty. After fifteen rounds of negotiations, an agreement in principle was reached to be adopted by the Energy Charter Conference on 22 November 2022 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.1 The ECT, adopted in 1994, establishes a legal framework that aims to promote international cooperation in the energy sector.2 It has a membership of 53 countries primarily from Europe and Central Asia, as well as the European Union (EU) and the European Atomic Energy Community. In recent years, the ECT attracted widespread public attention due to its impact on states’ environmental and climate policies. Particularly, the treaty’s provisions on investment protection, with investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) at the centre, allow foreign investors in the energy sector to challenge adverse state action before international arbitration and claim compensation for measures affecting their business activities. Fossil fuel investors have increasingly used the ECT to challenge environmental and climate measures, such as phasing out coal-fired power generation, banning offshore oil drilling in coastal areas, and prohibiting gas fracking projects. Such cases have fuelled concerns regarding the abilities of governments to roll-out large-scale climate action. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that international investment agreements (IIAs) like the ECT could ‘be used by fossil-fuel companies to block national legislation aimed at phasing out the use of their assets’.3 With some of these damage claims running into billions of euros, the ECT enables fossil fuel investors to offload the costs and risks associated with their affected assets onto society at large in the face of necessary climate action. This would go, in the words of the editorial board of the Financial Times, against the ‘heart of the capitalist social contract’ and the ‘ability of markets to deal adequately with the challenge of climate change’.4