Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence (mHRDD) Laws Caught Between Rituals and Ritualism: The Forms and Limits of Business Authority in the Global Governance of Business and Human Rights
LICHUMA, Caroline Omari
2024 • In Business and Human Rights Journal, p. 1-20
Global governance; mandatory human rights due diligence (mHRDD); Rituals and Ritualism; Transnational Corporations (TNCs); Business and Human Rights (BHR)
Abstract :
[en] Abstract
This article utilizes a ‘rituals-ritualism’ framework to assess the perils and potentials of relying upon mandatory human rights due diligence (mHRDD) laws to regulate the behaviour of transnational corporations (TNCs). This framework offers a socio-legal perspective that seeks to show how law is both influenced by and influences the social context within which it operates, i.e., the socially embedded operation of law.1 It has been advanced as a useful rubric for assessing whether and how states comply with human rights treaties,2 but can be extended to an assessment of mHRDD laws. Ultimately, this article hypothesizes that the potential regulatory effectiveness of mHRDD laws hinges on the extent to which HRDD obligations are transformed into rituals akin to cultural norms. In the absence of such a transformation, ritualism in HRDD will only further entrench a problematic status quo that has allowed TNCs to externalize the human rights and environmental impacts of their activities.
Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence (mHRDD) Laws Caught Between Rituals and Ritualism: The Forms and Limits of Business Authority in the Global Governance of Business and Human Rights
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2 Ibid, 7.
3 Markus Krajewski et al, ‘Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence in Germany and Norway: Stepping, or Striding in the Same Direction?’ (2021) 6:3 Business and Human Rights Journal 550.
4 Human Rights Council, ‘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’, A/HRC/8/5 (7 April 2008), para 56.
5 Hilary Charlesworth, ‘Rituals and Ritualism in the International Human Rights System’ in Nehal Bhuta et al (eds.), The Struggle for Human Rights: Essays in Honour of Philip Alston (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021) 18.
6 Emma Larking, ‘Human Rights Rituals and Contending World Views: Inequality, Economic and Social Rights, and La Vía Campesina’, paper presented at the workshop on ‘The Rituals of Human Rights’, organized by the Centre for International Governance and Justice, Regnet, Australia National University Canberra, 25–27 June 2014.
7 Ibid.
8 Marianna Leite, ‘Beyond Buzzwords: Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence and a Rights Based Approach to Business Models’ (2023) Business and Human Rights Journal 5.
9 Charlesworth, note 5, 18.
10 César Rodríguez-Garavito, ‘Business and Human Rights: Beyond the End of the Beginning’ in César Rodríguez-Garavito (ed), Business and Human Rights: Beyond the End of the Beginning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 1.
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14 European Commission, ‘Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence and Amending Directive (EU) 2019/1937’, https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/1_1_183885_prop_dir_susta_en.pdf (accessed 25 January 2023).
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19 Loi no. 2017-399 du 27 mars 2017 relative au devoir de vigilance des sociétés mères et des entreprises donneuses d’ordre 2017 (France).
20 Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains, BGBl I 2021, 2959 (Germany), https://www.csrin-deutschland.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/act-corporate-due-diligence-obligations-supply-chains.pdf?__ blob=publicationFile#linkicon (accessed 9 November 2023).
21 Act Relating to Enterprises’ Transparency and Work on Fundamental Human Rights and Decent Working Conditions (Transparency Act), LOV-2021-06-18-99 (Norway).
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23 Charlesworth et al, note 1, 7.
24 Jolyon Ford, ‘The Risk of Regulatory Ritualism: Proposals for a Treaty on Business and Human Rights’, Global Economic Governance Programme University of Oxford, Working Paper 118 (April 2016), https://www.geg.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/GEG%20WP_118%20The%20risk%20of%20regulatory%20ritualism%20proposals%20for%20a% 20treaty%20on%20business%20and%20human%20rights%20-%20Jolyon%20Ford.pdf.
25 Hilary Charlesworth, ‘Rituals and Ritualism in the International Human Rights System’ in Nehal Bhuta and others (eds.), The Struggle for Human Rights: Essays in Honour of Philip Alston (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021) 19–20.
26 Ibid, 29.
27 Jolyon Ford and Claire Methven O’Brien, ‘Empty Rituals or Workable Models? Towards a Business and Human Rights Treaty’ (2017) 40:3 University of New South Wales Law Journal 1223–1248; University of Groningen Faculty of Law Research Paper Series No. 20/2018 (2017).
28 Ibid, 1225.
29 Charlesworth et al, note 1, 2.
30 Ibid, 2.
31 Ibid, 3.
32 John Braithwaite et al, Regulating Aged Care: Ritualism and the New Pyramid (Cheltenham: Edward Edgar Publishing, 2007) 7.
33 Ford and O’Brien, note 27, 1229.
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36 Human Rights Council, note 4, para 56.
37 Larking, note 6, 2.
38 Ford and O’Brien, note 27, 1228.
39 Loi no. 2017-399 du 27 mars, note 19, Article 1.
40 Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains, note 20, Section 6(2).
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69 Loi no. 2017-399 du 27 mars, note 19, Article 2.
70 Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains, note 20, Section 7.
77 Hilary Charlesworth and Emma Larking, ‘Introduction: The Regulatory Power of the Universal Periodic Review’ in Hilary Charlesworth and Emma Larking (eds.), Human Rights and the Universal Periodic Review: Rights and Ritualism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014) 8.
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80 Ford and O’Brien, note 27, 1229.
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84 Loi no. 2017-399 du 27 mars, note 19, Article 1.
85 Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains, note 20, Section 4(4).
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88 Loi no. 2017-399 du 27 mars, note 19, Article 1.
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97 Charlesworth and Larking, note 77, 7.
98 Ibid, 8.
99 Janne Mende and Anneloes Hoff, ‘The Governance Authority of Non-State Actors in the Business and Human Rights Regime’ (2022) 21:5 Journal of Human Rights 596.
100 Mende, note 99, 203.
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid.
103 Ibid, 205.
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid, 207.
106 Doris Fuchs, Business Power in Global Governance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007), 159–180.
107 Allen Buchanan and Robert O Keohane, ‘The Legitimacy of Global Governance Institutions’ (2006) 20:4 Ethics and International Affairs 405.
108 Ian Hurd, ‘Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics’ (1999) 53:2 International Organization 381.
109 Mende, note 99, 208.
110 Ibid, 210.
111 Ibid.
112 Mende, note 99, 212.
113 Ibid, 213.
114 Ford and O’Brien, note 27, 1229.
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118 Keith R Molenaar, Hyman M Brown, Shreve Caile and Roger Smith, ‘Corporate Culture: A Study of Firms With Outstanding Construction Safety’ (2002) 47:7 ASSE Journal of Professional Safety 19.
119 Ibid.
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123 Ibid.
124 Human Rights Council, ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework’, A/HRC/17/31 (21 March 2011), principle 18.
125 OECD Guidance, note 81, 49.
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127 Landau, note 121, 238.
128 Quijano and Lopez, note 35, 248–249.
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