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Abstract
Between 2012 and 2013, we analysed and coded the human rights policies of the largest corporations in six of the world's most globalised industries: finance, mining, oil and gas, food and beverage, apparel and agribusiness. Using the language of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as benchmarks, we developed a scoring mechanism to evaluate the level of responsibility companies had accepted to (1) respect human rights, (2) conduct human rights due diligence, and (3) provide remedies for human rights violations associated with their activities. Statistical analysis using both standard regression and ordinal logistic regression revealed that companies domiciled in the United States score poorly, nearly on par with sub-Saharan Africa, while companies based in Europe and Commonwealth countries demonstrate the highest adoption rate of human rights duties. Additionally, extractive industries produce, overall, the strongest human rights policies, while apparel companies are laggards. Furthermore, membership in socially responsible industry groups may not correlate with higher human rights scores. These findings are analysed in the context of the external influences that align most closely with shifts in corporate policies. The article considers explanations for the disparities, which have policy implications for home states and industry associations.
Acknowledgements
Mark Wielga contributed significant insights to this article, for which we are deeply grateful. Profound thanks are due to the companies who took time to correspond with the authors while the database was under construction. Their candour and time were invaluable.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This research was paid for in full by the individual donors who support NomoGaia.
Notes on contributors
Kendyl Salcito has an MA in Journalism and a PhD in Epidemiology. She is interested in the development, validation and application of methodologies for assessing human rights impacts of corporate development projects. This line of scientific inquiry commenced in 2008 at NomoGaia, a US-based non-profit think tank dedicated to clarifying human rights responsibilities of corporations. Salcito is also a consultant of NewFields, a consulting firm in the impact assessment field for the extractive and energy industries.
Chris Wielga holds an MA in Economics from the University of Colorado Denver. He has six years of experience conducting qualitative and quantitative data analysis of corporate social responsibility policies and practices.
Burton H. Singer is trained in statistics (PhD). He is adjunct professor at the Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida and a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. Burton's research interests centre on integrated control of infectious diseases and the human health risks of corporate development projects, including the biological, environmental and social risks associated with vector-borne diseases.
Notes on contributors
Kendyl Salcito has an MA in Journalism and a PhD in Epidemiology. She is interested in the development, validation and application of methodologies for assessing human rights impacts of corporate development projects. This line of scientific inquiry commenced in 2008 at NomoGaia, a US-based non-profit think tank dedicated to clarifying human rights responsibilities of corporations. Salcito is also a consultant of NewFields, a consulting firm in the impact assessment field for the extractive and energy industries.
Chris Wielga holds an MA in Economics from the University of Colorado Denver. He has six years of experience conducting qualitative and quantitative data analysis of corporate social responsibility policies and practices.
Burton H. Singer is trained in statistics (PhD). He is adjunct professor at the Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida and a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. Burton's research interests centre on integrated control of infectious diseases and the human health risks of corporate development projects, including the biological, environmental and social risks associated with vector-borne diseases.
Notes
1. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), ‘Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights: Implementing the UN “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework' (Irvine CA: OHCHR, 2011).
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3. UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, ‘Draft Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, E/Cn.4/Sub.2/2003/12' (Washington, DC: United Nations, 2003).
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10. OHCHR, ‘Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights’.
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18. See, for example, Guiding Principle 16 (OHCHR, ‘Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights’). This policy commitment ‘is the first essential step for embedding respect for human rights into the values of the enterprise’.
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20. Because the Guiding Principles are still relatively new, the policies often refer to the framework, which was the precursor to the Guiding Principles. It contained the respect, protect, remedy structure which is also the framework for the Guiding Principles.
21. Five companies from our data set of 225 were not included in our regression analysis due to a lack of revenue data.
22. There is significant, but not complete, overlap between industry affiliation and top-20 status. As such, the sample comprised the 20 largest companies in each industry plus industry association members; some small companies are association members, and some large companies are not.
23. The Fair Labor Association was considered for the apparel industry, and Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance for food and beverage, but there is such a broad array of labour standards organisations for textiles and agriculture that selecting any of them could not be justified.
24. Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition, ‘Code of Conduct Version 4.0’ (Alexandria VA: Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition, 2012).
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27. Michael Ignatieff, ‘American Exceptionalism and Human Rights’, in American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, ed. Michael Ignatieff (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 1–26.
28. Interaction regressions were run for European and Commonwealth countries as they interact with the oil and financial industries, as well as for the role of being domiciled in the US as it interacts with the oil and financial industries. Results were not interesting.
29. Paul Kahn, ‘American Exceptionalism, Popular Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law’, in American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, ed. Michael Ignatieff (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2005), Chap. 7.
30. John Girard Ruggie, ‘Exemptionalism and Global Governance’, in American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, ed. Michael Ignatieff (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2005), Chap. 11.
31. Brigitte Hamm, ‘Challenges to Secure Human Rights through Voluntary Standards in the Textile and Clothing Industry', in Business and Human Rights, ed. Wesley Cragg (Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2012), Chap. 8.
32. Muhammad Azizul Islam and Ken McPhail, ‘Regulating for Corporate Human Rights Abuses: The Emergence of Corporate Reporting on the ILO’s Human Rights Standards within the Global Garment Manufacturing and Retail Industry', Critical Perspectives on Accounting 22, no. 8 (2011): 790–810.
33. There have, however, been corporate and government-level efforts to improve conditions for Bangladeshi textile workers, focusing on building and fire safety.
34. John Girard Ruggie, ‘Global Governance and “New Governance Theory”: Lessons from Business and Human Rights', Global Governance 20 (2014): 5–17.
35. Kendyl Salcito et al., ‘Assessing Corporate Project Impacts in Changeable Contexts: A Human Rights Perspective', Environmental Impact Assessment Review 47 (2014): 36–46.
36. R. Fisman, G. Heal, and V.B. Nair, ‘A Model of Corporate Philanthropy’ (paper presented at the American Economic Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 4 January 2009).
37. Timothy M. Devinney, Pat Auger, and Giana M. Eckhart, The Myth of the Ethical Consumer (New York: Cambridge University, 2010).
38. Brayden G. King and Sarah A. Soule, ‘Social Movements as Extra-Institutional Entrepreneurs: The Effect of Protests on Stock Price Returns’, Administrative Science Quarterly 52 (2007): 413–42.
39. Institute for Business and Human Rights, ‘Launch of the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark’ (London: Institute for Human Rights and Business, 2014).
40. King and Soule, ‘Social Movements as Extra-Institutional Entrepreneurs’.
41. Institute for Business and Human Rights, ‘Launch of the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark’.