Chapter 4 provides the first empirical assessment of the pathways developed earlier in the book. It focuses on access to judicial remedy mechanisms, defined as any process initiated in the court of law. This chapter asks: how does confrontation shape governance outcomes in terms of access to legal remedy efforts? I draw from political science and legal scholarship on the logic of deterrence to illustrate how Institutional Strength represents an important pathway to judicial remedy mechanisms. The Corporate Characteristics pathway is developed by engaging with political economy and management scholarship to explain the ways in which firm-level characteristics (e.g. foreignness, profitability, and size) explain variation in access to judicial remedy. Finally, the Elevating Voices pathway draws from the human rights scholarship, which illustrates how civil society participation (e.g. NGO or INGO involvement) can shape governance outcomes. Using case studies from the CHRD, this chapter also provides rich illustrations of victims’ access to judicial remedy mechanisms.

Chapter 5 explores the same pathways but draws on different scholarship, as non-judicial remedy mechanisms represent a much broader set of administrative or mediation-based activities that can be initiated by state or non-state actors. The Institutional Strength pathway explores how rule of law influences access to non-judicial remedy. To inform the mechanisms that drive the Corporate Characteristics and Elevating Voices pathways, this chapter employs slack resource theory to explain why profitable firms might be more likely to engage in socially responsible practices, such as non-judicial remedy. This approach suggests that when firms have the slack, or extra resources to do good deeds, they will do so. Other scholars explore how firm size can also shape firm involvement in such activities; larger firms are more vulnerable to civil society pressure and, thus, may be more likely to engage in non-judicial remedy mechanisms. Detailed vignettes provide concrete illustrations of victims’ efforts to access to non-judicial remedy mechanisms.

Chapter 3 presents the Corporations and Human Rights Database by exploring patterns and trends with descriptive data to illustrate the variation in access to remedy. The CHRD includes over 1,300 allegations of corporate human rights abuse between 2000 and 2014. Chapter 3 explains how my students and I created the CHRD, which is the first systematic database on corporate human rights abuses and access to remedy. This chapter discusses the data collection process and includes descriptive statistics on the type of claim, corporate responses, and associated judicial and non-judicial remedy efforts included in the database. This chapter familiarizes the reader with the data, discusses verification processes, and provides a basic landscape of how the CHRD informs business and human rights in Latin America.

Finally, the conclusion provides an overview of the argument and findings, which together call for a departure from the more traditional narrative around the governance gap. Instead, this research illustrates that while impunity does exist, there are many more efforts to hold corporations accountable than the governance gap narrative would suggest. The varieties of remedy approach focus on the real shortcomings associated with governing – the abilities to engage with an adversary, absorb contestation, and explore creative and possibly unorthodox solutions to find a better path forward. This chapter also addresses the generalizability of this work and shares some areas of future research.

Engaging directly with agonistic thought, Chapter 6 asks whether contestation about corporate human rights abuses, over the long-term, shapes democratic institutions more broadly. What is clear in agonistic scholarship is that confrontation must be incorporated or integrated into democratic institutions. This chapter empirically tests this relationship. It finds that contestation improves measures of respect for human rights and civic empowerment. That is, without any formal or informal response, simply speaking out and making abuses known improves respect for human rights, generally. The data also illustrate that, regardless of the outcome, there is a positive cumulative effect of trials over time, demonstrating the importance of reflexive innovation. In contrast, simply engaging in non-judicial remedy alone does not improve respect for human rights. The analysis shows that there is a positive, cumulative relationship between respect for human rights and those non-judicial remedy efforts led by the state. If corporations lead the non-judicial remedy effort, however, they do nothing to improve respect for human rights or more robust civic engagement over the long-term.

Chapter 2 takes a deeper dive into the literatures on pragmatism and agonism to illustrate how, when combined, they provide the intellectual framing and underpinnings of the varieties of remedy approach. While pragmatism highlights the need to analyze the dynamics between local actors, their advocates, and the firms involved in the abuse, agonism opens us to the notion that non-violent contestation and confrontation could have a potentially positive role. With this foundation, I develop the varieties of remedy approach, exploring how contestation (e.g. claim making) shapes governance outcomes (e.g. access to judicial or non-judicial remedy mechanisms). Three pathways are discussed in greater depth in Chapter 2 – Institutional Strength, Corporate Characteristics, and Elevating Voices – and tested empirically in subsequent chapters.

This chapter provides an overview of key developments in the business and human rights landscape, more recent global efforts, and challenges that remain. The first half of this introductory chapter discusses the landmark policy efforts over the past forty years. Given the widespread development of voluntary or “soft law” initiatives, the second half of this chapter explores the fundamental challenge in business and human rights: the question of accountability. Even in cases of wrongdoing, jurisdictional issues, the corporate veil, and lack of political will present important challenges to holding firms accountable. This chapter tells the old narrative of corporate impunity and governance gaps; it introduces a new story that draws from systematic data and illustrative examples to explore the pathways by which victims gain access to remedy mechanisms.