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Abstract
This article takes as its starting point the responsibility placed upon corporations by the United Nations’ (UN) Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework as elaborated upon by the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to respect human rights. The overt pragmatism and knowledge of the complex business relationships that are embedded in global production led John Ruggie, the author of the framework, to adopt a structure for the relationship between human rights and business that built on the existing practices of corporate social responsibility (CSR). His intention was that these practices should be developed to embrace respect for human rights by exhorting corporations to move from ‘the era of declaratory CSR' to showing a demonstrable policy commitment to respect for human rights. The prime motivation for corporations to do this was, according to Ruggie, because the responsibility to respect was one that would be guarded and judged by the ‘courts of public opinion' as part of the social expectations imposed upon corporations or to put it another way as a condition of a corporation's social licence to operate. This article sets out the background context to the framework and examines the structures that it puts forward. In its third and final section the article looks at how the framework requires a corporation's social licence to be assembled and how and by whom that social licence will be judged. The success or failure of the framework in persuading corporations to respect human rights is tied to whether ‘the courts of public opinion' can use their ‘naming and shaming power' effectively.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Sally Wheeler is Professor of Law at Queen's University Belfast.
Notes
1. See the comments made by Ruggie to the UN General Assembly on 26 October 2010, http://www.ohchr.org/documents/issues/business/2010GA65remarks.pdf (accessed 7 February 2014).
2. Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development – protect, respect and remedy: A framework for business and human rights report of the special representative of the secretary-general on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. UN Doc. A/HRC/8/5 at para. 54.
3. United States (US)-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) China Labor Watch produced two consecutive reports in 2013 and 2014 on Apple's subcontracted production facilities in China which show human rights abuses and environmental standards to be compromised and unimproved in the intervening 12 months: http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/upfile/Jabil_Green_Point.final.pdf; http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/upfile/2014_09_25/2014.09.25%20iExploitation%20at%20Jabil%20Wuxi%20EN.pdf
4. R. Neate, ‘Rio Tinto Blamed by Protesters Over 41 Mine Worker Deaths', The Guardian, 5 April 2014. See also http://londonminingnetwork.org/2010/04/rio-tinto-a-shameful-history-of-human-and-labour-rights-abuses-and-environmental-degradation-around-the-globe/. It should be noted that Rio Tinto has compiled a publicly available and very extensive guide to how it integrates human rights into its operations, see http://www.riotinto.com/documents/ReportsPublications/Rio_Tinto_human_rights_guide_-_English_version.pdf (accessed 28 March 2014).
5. M. Hart-Landsberg, Capitalist Globalization (New York: The Monthly Review Press, 2013), 13–55, provides an account of the growth of large corporations. See also for some additional statistical depth UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2011: Non-Equity Modes of International Production and Development (New York: UN, 2012).
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7. The World Investment Report 2013 (122–40) suggests that more than 60% of global trade by value takes place within global value chains, http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/wir2013_en.pdf (accessed 1 February 2014).
8. Some accounts assert that the number of clothing brands sourcing products from Rana Plaza was as high as 27. For a discussion of this and other factory disasters see https://www.cleanclothes.org/news/2013/05/24/background-rana-plaza-tazreen; and D. Robinson, ‘Primark Increases Compensation to Rana Plaza Factory Victims in Bangladesh’, Financial Times, 24 October 2013.
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17. The extent to which this growth model becomes a reality depends on a number of variables, including the terms of investment treaties, the strength of governance in the host country and the quality of infrastructure available to distribute the benefits, see S. Lauwo and O. Otusanya ‘Corporate Accountability and Human Rights Disclosures: A Study of Barrick Gold Mine in Tanzania’, Accounting Forum 38 (2014): 91–108.
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21. J. Hönke and C. Thauer, ‘Multinational Corporations and Service Provision in Sub-Saharan Africa: Legitimacy and Institutionalization Matter: Multinational Corporations in Sub-Saharan Africa’, Governance 27 (2014): 697.
22. A. Crane, D. Matten and J. Moon, Corporations and Citizenship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), at 64f.
23. United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Resolution 2005/69.
24. See T. Sagafi-Nejad, The UN and Transnational Corporations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008).
25. Seppala, while concentrating on the continuance of state centrality to the human rights and business activity debate, presents some very interesting commentary about the cumulative processes around these interventions, see N. Seppala, ‘Business and the International Human Rights Regime: A Comparison of UN Initiatives', Journal of Business Ethics 87 (2009): 401–17.
28. See S. Asante, ‘The Concept of the Good Corporate Citizen in International Business', Foreign Investment Law Journal 4 (1989): 1.
29. For an account of how this has become one of the central discourses of our times but has also lost its way in a sea of anti-democratic political activity see S. Hopgood, The Endtimes of Human Rights (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), in particular 119–41.
30. Baxi framed the juncture between these two discourses in terms of a question, ‘which are the right language and rhetoric to be used – those furnished by the grammar of human rights or the wider languages of “social responsibility”?’: U. Baxi, ‘Market Fundamentalisms: Business Ethics at the Altar of Human Rights', Human Rights Law Review 5 (2005): 1 at 24.
31. B. Husted and J. Salazer, ‘Taking Friedman Seriously: Maximizing Profits and Social Performance’, Journal of Management Studies 43 (2006): 75.
32. For a framing of this debate see J. Dillard and A. Murray, ‘Deciphering the Domain of Corporate Social Responsibility’, in Corporate Social Responsibility, ed. K. Haynes, A. Murray and J. Dillard (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 10, and from a more critical perspective, S. Banerjee, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’, Critical Sociology 34 (2008): 51.
33. Wilks has a concise but powerful articulation of the critique of corporations taking on the role of governments in the delivery of social programmes, see S. Wilks, The Political Power of the Business Corporation (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2013): at 207.
34. A. Scherer, G. Palazzo and D. Matten, ‘The Business Firm as a Political Actor: A New Theory of the Firm for a Globalized World’, Business and Society 53 (2014): 143.
35. S. Aaronson, ‘Seeping in Slowly: How Human Rights Concerns are Penetrating the WTO’, World Trade Review 6 (2007): 1.
36. D. Rabet, ‘Human Rights and Globalization: The Myth of Corporate Social Responsibility?' Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences 1 (2009): 463.
37. P. Newell, ‘CSR and the Limits of Capital’, Development and Change 39 (2008): 1063.
38. T. Porter, ‘The Private Production of Public Goods: Private and Public Norms in Global Governance’, in Complex Sovereignty: Reconstituting Political Authority in the Twenty-First Century, ed. E. Grande and L. Pauly (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 217.
39. J. Ruggie, ‘Taking Embedded Liberalism Global: The Corporate Connection’, in Taming Globalization, ed. D. Held and M. Koenig-Archibugi (Cambridge: Polity, 2003), 93 at 108 and 116–17.
40. T. Campbell, ‘A Human Rights Approach to Developing Voluntary Codes of Conduct for Multinational Corporations', Business Ethics Quarterly 16 (2006): 255. For a discussion of the surprisingly small overlap that has occurred in CSR and human rights debates see F. Wettstein, ‘CSR and the Debate on Business and Human Rights: Bridging the Great Divide’, Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (2012): 739 at 746–8.
41. L. Preuss and D. Brown, ‘Business Policies on Human Rights: An Analysis of Their Content’, Journal of Business Ethics 109 (2012): 289. Their findings were based on corporate policies from the reporting year 2009.
42. Human rights and CSR have both emerged as norms of behaviour for different groups in the recent past, following the norm life-cycle explained in M. Finnemore and K. Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics and Political Change’, International Organization 52 (1998): 887. For an illustration of this structure of norm emergence in the context of corporate activity and affected communities and stakeholders see H. Dashwood, ‘Sustainable Development Norms and CSR in the Global Mining Sector’, in Governance Ecosystems, ed. J. Sagebien and N. Lindsay (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 31.
43. Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, 26 August 2003, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/12/Rev.2.
44. K. de Feyter, Human Rights (London: Zed Books, 2005).
45. Delimiting corporate responsibility in this way was seen as extending it considerably from previous iterations of the relationship between corporate behaviour and human rights recognition and protection, see W. Meyer, Human Rights and International Political Economy in Third World Nations: Multinational Corporations, Foreign Aid and Repression (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998); and A Voiculescu, ‘Human Rights and the Normative Ordering of Global Capitalism’, in The Business of Human Rights, ed. A. Voiculescu and H. Yanacopulos (London: Zed Books, 2011), 10 at 12–16.
46. Compare the positions taken by D. Weissbrodt and M. Kruger, ‘Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights', American Journal of International Law 97 (2003): 901; and J. Knox, ‘The Ruggie Rules: Applying Human Rights Law to Corporations', in The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, ed. R. Mares (Leiden, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 2012), 51.
47. D. Kinley, J. Nolan and N. Zerial, ‘“The Norms are Dead! Long Live the Norms!” The Politics behind the UN Human Rights Norms for Corporations', in The New Corporate Accountability, ed. D. McBarnet, A. Voiculescu and T. Campbell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 459.
48. For detailed accounts of the norms see D. Kinley and R. Chambers, ‘The UN Human Rights Norms for Corporations: The Private Implications of Public International Law’, Human Rights Law Review 6 (2006): 447; and D. Arnold, ‘Transnational Corporations and the Duty to Respect Basic Human Rights', Business Ethics Quarterly 20 (2010): 371–99.
49. Some corporations' members volunteered to trial the monitoring of activities suggested by the norms, see http://www.realizingrights.org/pdf/BLIHR3Report.pdf
50. States such as Pakistan and Malaysia, with economic models predicated on supply chain participation, took the view that the norms might make them uncompetitive locations for inward corporate business and/or stifle their own domestic economic development, see S. Jerbi, ‘Business and Human Rights at the UN: What Might Happen Next?’, Human Rights Quarterly 31 (2009): 299. For similar concerns around the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and ISO 14000, see K. Dingwerth, ‘Private Transnational Governance and the Developing World: A Comparative Perspective’, International Studies Quarterly 52 (2008): 607 at 617.
51. Ruggie's own analysis of the issues that had to be addressed in a post-norms era can be found at J. Ruggie, ‘Business and Human Rights: The Evolving International Agenda’, American Journal of International Law 101 (2007): 819.
52. Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises, UN E/CN.4/2006/97.
53. J. Ruggie Just Business (New York: Norton & Co., 2013), at pxlv.
54. Ruggie described the norms as a ‘train wreck' full of exaggerated legal claims and conceptual and procedural ambiguities, see Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Interim Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises, UN ESCOR, Commission on Human Rights, 62d Sess, Provisional Agenda Item 17, UN Doc. /CN.4/2006/97 (2006).
55. See UN Doc. A/HRC/8/5 at para. 4; and J. Ruggie, Prepared Remarks at Clifford Chance (London: Clifford Chance, 19 February 2007), http://www.reportsand-materials.org/Ruggie-remarks-Clifford-Chance-19-Feb-2007.pdf
56. S. Aaronsen and I. Higham, ‘“Re-Righting Business”: John Ruggie and the Struggle to Develop International Human Rights Standards for Transnational Firms', Human Rights Quarterly 35 (2013): 333.
57. See n. 46; and S. Ratner, ‘Corporations and Human Rights: A Theory of Legal Responsibility’, Yale Law Journal 111 (2001): 443.
58. See note 2.
59. A. Clapham, ed., Human Rights and Non-State Actors (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2013).
60. See UN Doc. A/HRC/8/5 at para. 52.
61. ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework’, (GP), http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Business/A-HRC-17-31_AEV.pdf (accessed 6 February 2014).
62. See GP 12.
63. Muchlinski asserts that several important human rights instruments in the context of business operations, for example, Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) are not caught by the framework, P. Muchlinski, ‘Implementing the New UN Corporate Human Rights Framework: Implications for Corporate Law, Governance and Regulation’, Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (2012): 145 at 148.
64. See Ruggie Just Business, 20–3, 96.
67. S. Atler, ‘The Impact of the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative and the UN Framework on the Development of the Human Rights Components of ISO 26000′, Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative Working Paper No. 64 (Cambridge, MA: John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2011).
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69. A. Rasche, ‘“A Necessary Supplement”: What the United Nations Global Compact Is and Is Not’, Business and Society 48 (2009): 511.
70. Macdonald recasts sphere of influence into ‘sphere of responsibility' built around an idea of agent-centred responsibility for harm mediated through others. This has the potential to encourage the changing of harmful business practices and the adoption of improved business practices as distinct actions in their own right where the corporation was not the primary actor, see K. Macdonald, ‘Re-thinking “Spheres of Responsibility”: Business Responsibility for Indirect Harm’, Journal of Business Ethics 99 (2011): 549.
71. D. Kinley, J. Nolan and N. Zerial, ‘The Politics of Corporate Social Responsibility: Reflections on the United Nations Human Rights Norms for Corporations', Company and Securities Law Journal (2007): 30 at 37.
72. The possibilities for a leveraged-based responsibility is offered in S. Wood, ‘The Case for Leverage-Based Corporate Human Rights Responsibility’, Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (2012): 63. An equally rigorous case for a narrower view of the ambit of responsibility can be found in J. Douglas-Bishop, ‘The Limits of Corporate Human Rights Obligations and the Rights of For-Profit Corporations', in Business and Human Rights, ed. W. Cragg (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2012), 74.
73. See UN Doc. A/HRC/8/5 at paras 68–9.
74. A real commitment to leverage would see the Ruggie architecture suggest that the largest or most financially powerful corporate actors should have a wider purview of human rights responsibility that causes them to think in a global sense about what the effect of particular business activities might be, see M. Dowell-Jones and D. Kinley, ‘Minding the Gap: Global Finance and Human Rights', Ethics and International Affairs 25 (2011): 183.
77. The challenge of engaging the finance industry in what respect for human rights means is set out by Dowell-Jones in ‘Financial Institutions and Human Rights', Human Rights Law Review 13 (2013): 423.
78. See UN Doc. A/HRC/8/5 at para. 56.
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80. See UN Doc. A/HRC/8/5 at para. 60.
81. Ibid., at para. 61.
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83. See UN Doc. A/HRC/8/5 at para. 62.
84. See ibid., at para. 63.
85. J. Ames, ‘Taking Responsibility’, European Lawyer (2011): 15.
86. For a review of possible positions on this point see D. Arnold, ‘Transnational Corporations and the Duty to Respect Basic Human Rights', Business Ethics Quarterly 20 (2010): 371; and W. Cragg, ‘Ethics, Enlightened Self-Interest, and the Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights: A Critical Look at the Justificatory Foundations of the UN Framework’, Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (2012): 9.
87. B. Kytle and J. Ruggie, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility as Risk Management: A Model for Multinationals', Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative Working Paper No. 10 (Cambridge, MA: John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2005).
88. B. Horrigan, Corporate Social Responsibility in the 21st Century (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010), at 323–5.
89. For a discussion of this point see C. Lopez, ‘The “Ruggie Process”: From Legal Obligations to Corporate Social Responsibility?’, in Human Rights Obligations of Business, ed. S. Deva and D. Bilchitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 58.
90. See UN Doc. A/HRC/8/5 at paras 54–61.
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92. T. Büthe and W. Mattli, ‘International Standards and Standard-Setting Bodies', in The Oxford Handbook of Business and Government, ed. D. Coen, W. Grant and G. Wilson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 440 at 455f.
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94. D. Vogel, ‘Taming Globalization’, in The Oxford Handbook of Business and Government, ed. D. Coen, W. Grant and G. Wilson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 472.
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97. R. McCorquodale, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility and International Human Rights Law’, Journal of Business Ethics 87 (2009): 391.
98. N. Jackson and P. Carter, ‘Organizational Chiaroscuro: Throwing Light on the Concept of Corporate Governance’, Human Relations 48 (1995): 875.
99. J. Conley and C. Williams, ‘Engage, Embed and Embellish: Theory versus Practice in the Corporate Social Responsibility Movement’, Journal of Corporate Law 31 (2005–2006): 1.
100. S. Zadek, The Civil Corporation (London: Earthscan, 2001); and S. Zadek, ‘The Path to Corporate Responsibility’, Harvard Business Review (December 2004).
101. Stage models of CSR development pre-date Zadek, see P. Sethi, ‘Dimensions of Corporate Social Performance: An Analytical Framework’, California Management Review 75 (1975): 58. For a more modern example see A. Warhurst, ‘Past, Present and Future Corporate Responsibility: Achievements and Aspirations', in The Responsible Corporation in Global Economy, ed. C. Crouch and C. Maclean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011): 55–83.
102. B. Holzer, Moralizing the Corporation (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010), 94–6.
103. J. Owen and D. Kemp, ‘Social Licence and Mining: A Critical Perspective’, Resources Policy 38 (2013): 29 at 33.
104. N. Gunningham, R. Kagan and D. Thornton, ‘Social License and Environmental Protection: Why Businesses Go Beyond Compliance’, Law and Social Inquiry 29 (2004): 307.
105. Ibid., 308.
106. J. Owen and D. Kemp, ‘Social Licence and Mining: A Critical Perspective’, Resources Policy 38 (2013): 31.
107. J. Howard-Grenville, J. Nash and C. Coglianese, ‘Constructing the License to Operate: Internal Factors and Their Influence on Corporate Environmental Decisions', Law and Policy 30 (2008): 73, provide a fantastic account of intrafirm factors that influence the fate of the social licence. Their account deserves much more attention than it is possible to give it here. A summary of the factors that they identify with the supporting evidence for them can be found at p. 80.
108. Of course there may be other external factors at play in valuing reputation, such as the position taken on it by debt and equity finance, but importance of this position has to be calculated by corporate executives based upon their own internal view of things. What shapes their view is the culture they operate in, see J. Howard-Grenville, ‘Inside the “Black Box”: How Organizational Culture and Subcultures Inform Interpretations and Actions on Environmental Issues', Organization & Environment 19 (2006): 46.
109. D. Schön, The Reflexive Practitioner (New York: Basic Books, 1983), at 40.
110. http://www.icmm.com/document/3716 (accessed 2 February 2014).
111. http://www.australiancoal.com.au/social-licence-to-operate.html (accessed 2 February 2014).
112. http://www.minerals.org.au/file_upload/files/resources/enduring_value/EV_GuidanceForImplementation_July2005.pdf (accessed 2 February 2014).
113. For example, Anglo American PLC, http://www.angloamerican.com/~/media/Files/A/Anglo-American-Plc/reports/annual-report-2013/AA-SDR-2803.pdf (accessed 31 January 2014); and Lonmin PLC, http://sd-report.lonmin.com/2013/home (accessed 31 January 2014).
114. S. Bice, ‘What Gives You a Social Licence? An Exploration of the Social Licence to Operate in the Australian Mining Industry’, Resources (2014): 62.
115. E. Salim, Striking a Better Balance: Extractive Industries Review: The World Bank Group and Extractive Industries (Volume 1) (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003).
116. J. Prno and D. Slocombe, ‘Exploring the Origins of “Social Licence to Operate” in the Mining Sector: Perspectives from Governance and Sustainability Theories', Resources Policy 37 (2012): 346.
117. Gunningham, Kagan and Thornton, ‘Social License and Environmental Protection’, 332–6.
118. O. Ololade and H. Annegarn, ‘Contrasting Community and Corporate Perceptions of Sustainability: A Case Study within the Platinum Mining Region of South Africa’, Resources Policy 38 (2013): 568.
119. R. Howitt and R. Lawrence, ‘Indigenous Peoples, Corporate Social Responsibility and the Fragility of the Interpersonal Domain’, in Earth Matters, ed. C. O'Faircheallaigh and S. Ali (Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing, 2008), 83.
120. R. Hamann, ‘Is Corporate Citizenship Making a Difference?’, Journal of Corporate Citizenship 4 (2007): 15.
121. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, article 32 of which enshrines free, prior and informed consent as the standard to be applied to protect the land rights of indigenous communities, is endorsed by 148 states, but without host state recognition of actual land rights and claims competing claims to preservation and wider development are likely to conflict, see B. Haalboom, ‘The Intersection of Corporate Social Responsibility Guidelines and Indigenous Rights: Examining Neoliberal Governance of a Proposed Mining Project in Suriname’, Geoforum 43 (2012): 969.
122. In 2006, early in his mandate, Ruggie presented an interim report which focused on 65 cases of corporate abuses of human rights drawn from 27 countries, see Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Interim Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises, 22 February 2006, E/CN.4/2006/97.
123. See ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework', GPs 17–21.
124. For an account of some HRIAs that have been conducted by corporate actors in relation to very specific activities see J. Harrison, ‘Measuring Human Rights: Reflections on the Practice of Human Rights Impact Assessment and Lessons for the Future’, Warwick School of Law Research Paper No. 2010/26, November 2010, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1706742
125. T. Maassarani, M. Tatgenhorst Drakos and J. Pajkowska, ‘Extracting Corporate Responsibility: Towards a Human Rights Impact Assessment’, Cornell International Law Journal 40 (2007): 135 at 144–50.
126. A.M. Esteves, D. Franks and F. Vanclay, ‘Social Impact Assessment: The State of the Art’, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 30 (2012): 34.
127. D. Kemp and F. Vanclay, ‘Human Rights and Impact Assessment: Clarifying the Connections in Practice’, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 31 (2013): 86.
128. See ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework', the supporting commentary to GP 18.
129. Cragg, ‘Ethics, Enlightened Self-Interest, and the Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights', 14.
130. S. Barrientos and S. Smith, ‘Do Workers Benefit from Ethical Trade? Assessing Codes of Labour Practice in Global Production Systems', Third World Quarterly 28 (2007): 713.
131. O. Borial, ‘Corporate Greening Through ISO 14001: A Rational Myth?’, Organization Science 18 (2007): 127.
132. N. Andrew, M. Wickham, W. O'Donohue and F. Danzinger, ‘Presenting a Core-Periphery Model of Voluntary CSR Disclosure in Australian Annual Report’, Corporate Ownership and Control 9 (2012): 438.
133. See M. Delmas and V. Burbano, ‘The Drivers of Greenwashing’, California Management Review 54 (2011): 64; and I. Alves, ‘Green Spin Everywhere: How Greenwashing Reveals the Limits of the CSR Paradigm’, Journal of Global Change and Governance 2 (2009): 1.
134. K. Salcito, J. Utzinger, M. Weiss et al., ‘Assessing Human Rights Impacts in Corporate Development Projects', Environmental Impact Assessment Review 42 (2013): 39.
135. J. Harrison, ‘Human Rights Measurement: Reflections on the Current Practice and Future Potential of Human Rights Impact Assessment’, Journal of Human Rights Practice 3 (2011): 162 at 172.
136. For concerns about the accuracy and quality of what is released in existing governance environments see A. Fonesca, ‘How Credible are Mining Corporations' Sustainability Reports? A Critical Analysis of External Assurance under the Requirements of the International Council on Mining and Metals', Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 17 (2010): 355.
137. Ruggie, Just Business, 68–77.
138. J. Harrison, ‘Establishing a Meaningful Human Rights Due Diligence Process for Corporations: Learning from Experience of Human Rights Impact Assessment’, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 31 (2013): 107 at 114.
139. L. Fransen, ‘Why do Private Governance Organizations not Converge? A Political-Institutional Analysis of Transnational Labor Standards Regulation’, Governance 24 (2011): 359.
140. UN Doc. A/HRC/8/5.
141. See for example http://www.unpri.org, http://www.ceres.org, http://www.incr.com, http://www.iigcc.org. While this is not a point to be taken here, there is a distinction drawn in investment practice between responsible ownership and socially responsible investment, now rather better known as ethical investing.
142. S. Viviers, ‘Is Responsible Investing Ethical?’, South Africa Journal of Business Management 39 (2008): 15. Co-operative Financial Service figures for 2009 (constructed using information from the Investment Management Association and the British Bankers Association) place the amount of money held in ethical financial instruments at £19.2 billion up from £5.2 billion in 1999. Although showing strong growth, this figure represents only 1.8% of the amounts held in UK-based financial instruments.
143. Harrison, ‘Establishing a Meaningful Human Rights Due Diligence Process for Corporations', 113.
144. http://www.riotinto.com/annualreport2013/_pdfs/rio-tinto-2013-strategic-report.pdf (accessed 28 March 2014).
145. See n. 4.
146. T. Melish and E. Meidinger, ‘Protect, Respect, Remedy and Participate: “New Governance” Lessons for the Ruggie Framework’, in The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Foundations and Implementation, ed. R. Mares (The Netherlands: Brill, 2011), 303.
147. I. Nooruddin and S. Wilson Sokhey, ‘Credible Certification of Child Labor Free Production’, in The Credibility of Transnational NGOs, ed. P. Gourevitch, D. Lake and J. Gross Stein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 62.
148. S. Starobin and E. Weinthal, ‘The Search for Credible Information in Social and Environmental Global Governance’, Business and Politics 12 (2010): 1.
149. J. Hendry, ‘Taking Aim at Business: What Factors Lead Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations to Target Particular Firms?’, Business and Society 45 (2006): 45.
150. P. Gourevitch and D. Lake, ‘Beyond Virtue: Evaluating and Enhancing the Credibility of Non-governmental Organizations', in The Credibility of Transnational NGOs, ed. Gourevitch, Lake and Gross Stein, at 3f.
151. M. Yaziji and J. Doh, NGOs and Corporations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), at 57–73.