Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T19:05:49.894Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ethics, Enlightened Self-Interest, and the Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights: A Critical Look at the Justificatory Foundations of the UN Framework

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Wesley Cragg
Wesley Cragg*
Affiliation:
York University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Central to the United Nations Framework setting out the human rights responsibilities of corporations proposed by John Ruggie is the principle that corporations have a responsibility to respect human rights in their operations whether or not doing so is required by law and whether or not human rights laws are actively enforced. Ruggie proposes that corporations should respect this principle in their strategic management and day-to-day operations for reasons of corporate (enlightened) self-interest. This paper identifies this as a serious weakness and argues that identifying the responsibility to respect human rights as an explicitly ethical obligation to be respected for that reason would provide a much stronger justificatory foundation for respecting the principle seen from a corporate perspective, given that corporations are accountable to their shareholders for their deployment of the firm’s financial resources.

Keywords

businesshuman rightsethicsUN Frameworkglobalization
Type
Special Issue: Human Rights and Business
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 9 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Amnesty International. (2010). Comments on the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General on Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises' Draft Guiding Principles and on post-mandate arrangements. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/IOR50/001/2010/en/71401e1e-7e9c-44a4-88a7-de3618b2983b/ior500012010en.pdf.Google Scholar
Arnold, D. G. (2010) “Transnational Corporations and the Duty to Respect Basic HumanRights,” Business Ethics Quarterly. 20 (3): 371–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, J. D. (2012) “The Limits of Corporate Human Rights Obligations and the Rights of For-Profit Corporations,” Business Ethics Quarterly. 22 (1): 119–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brenkert, G., and Brenkert, T.eds.(2010). Oxford Handbook of Business Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, T., and Brenkert, T.eds.(2006). Rights: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Campbell, T. (2010) “Corporate Social Responsibility: Beyond the Business Case to Human Rights” Paper presented at the Canadian Business Ethics Research Network Business and Human Rights Symposium. Toronto.Google Scholar
Campbell, T., and Miller, S.eds.(2004). Human Rights and the Moral Responsibilities of Corporate and Public Sector Organizations. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Chandler, G. (2003). “The Evolution of the Business and Human Rights Debate,” in Business and Human Rights. ed. Sullivan, R.22–33.Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing LimitedGoogle Scholar
Cragg, W. (1997). “Teaching Business Ethics: The Role of Ethics in Business and Business Education,” Journal of Business Ethics.16 (3): 231–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cragg, W. (2002). “Business Ethics and Stakeholder Theory,” Business Ethics Quarterly.12 (2): 113–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cragg, W. (2010). “Business and Human Rights: A Principle and Value-Based Analysis,” in Oxford Handbook of Business Ethics.ed.Brenkert, George and Beauchamp, Tom267–305Oxford: Oxford University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cragg, W., Schwartz, Mark and Weitzner, David. (2009). Corporate Social Responsibility. Farnham: UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Dienhart, John. (2008). “The Separation Thesis: Perhaps Nine Lives are Enough,” Business Ethics Quarterly.18 (4): 555–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donaldson, Thomas, and Dunfee, Thomas W. (1999). Ties That Bind. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Drucker, Peter F. (2001). The Essential Drucker. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Dworkin, R. (1977). Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fischel, D. and Sykes, A.(1996). “Corporate Crime,” Journal of Legal Studies.25 (2): 319–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, R.E. and Wicks, A.C. and Parmar, B.(2004). “Stakeholder Theory and ‘The Corporate Objective Revisited,’,” Organizational Science.15 (3): 364–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gewirth, Alan. (1985). “Why There Are Human Rights,” SocialTheory and Practice.11 (2): 235–48.Google Scholar
Gewirth, Alan. (1996) The Community of Rights. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Griffin, J. (2004). “Human Rights: Whose Duties,” in Human Rights and the Moral Responsibilities of Corporate and Public Sector Organizations.ed. Campbell, T. and Miller, S.31–45Dordrecht:Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Jared D. and Edward Freedman, R.(2008). “The Impossibility of the Separation Thesis,” Business Ethics Quarterly 18 (4) 541–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsieh, Nien-Hê. (2009). “Does Global Business Have a Responsibility to Promote Just Institutions?,” Business Ethics Quarterly 19 (2) 251–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gewirth, Alan. (1996) The Community of Rights. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ivison, Duncan. (2008) Rights. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
KobrinStephen,J. Stephen,J. (2009). “Private Political Authority and Public Responsibility: Transnational Politics, Transnational Firms, and Human Rights,” Business Ethics Quarterly 19 (3) 349–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koh, Harold Hongju (1997). “Private Why Do Nations Obey International Law?,” Yale Law Journal 106 (8) 2599–2659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, Benjamin and Cragg, Wesley(2010). “Being Virtuous and Prosperous: SRI's Conflicting Goals,” Journal of Business Ethics 92 (1) 21–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruggie, J. G. (2007) Business and Human Rights: Mapping International Standards of Responsibility and Accountability for Corporate Acts.UN Doc A/HRC/4/035.Google Scholar
Ruggie, J. G. (2008) Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human Rights.UN Doc A/HRC/8/5.Google Scholar
Ruggie, J. G. (2010) Business and Human Rights: Further Steps Toward the Operationalization of the “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework. UN Doc. A/HRC/14/27.Google Scholar
Ruggie, J. G. (2011) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework. UN Doc. A/HRC/17/31.Google Scholar
Sandberg, Joakim (2008). “The Tide Is Turning on the Separation Thesis?,”Business Ethics Quarterly 18 (4) 561–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scanlon, T. (2003) The Difficulty of Tolerance: Essays in Political Philosophy Cambridge: Cambridge University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shue, H. (1996) Basic Rights: Subsistance, Affluence and US Foreign Policy Princeton,N.J.: Princeton University PressGoogle Scholar
United Nations. (2003) Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with regard to Human RightsUN Doc. E/CN.4/ Sub.2/2003/12/Rev.2.Google Scholar
Webb, K. (1999). “Voluntary Initiatives and the Law,” in Voluntary Initiatives: The New Politics of Corporate Greening, ed. Gibson, R.32–50.Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview PressGoogle Scholar
Wempe, Ben. (2008). “Understanding the Separation Thesis,” Business Ethics Quarterly 18 (4) 549–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wicks, A. C. (1996). “Overcoming the Separation Thesis: The Need for a Reconsideration of Business and Society Research,” Business and Society 35 (1) 89–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Cynthia. (1998). “Corporate Compliance with the Law in the Era of Efficiency?,” North Carolina Law Review 76 (4) 89–1265.1385.Google Scholar