Business and Human Rights: Corporate Conduct and the International Regulatory Framework

Business and Human Rights represents a relatively new law field, aimed at regulating corporate conduct to uphold human rights’ protection. Numerous breaches of the already-existing due diligence, Corporate Social Responsibility, international conventions and labour law legislation, led to a novel conscience and knowledge of the threat which corporate behaviour could potentially represent. This analysis presents the developments which have taken place over the past fifty years with regards to goods manufacturing through supply chains and the issues which are being caused by the switch to a consumerist mass production. Milton Friedman’s theory on the aim of companies being the maximisation of profits only represents the reason for the previous non-existence of regulation concerning firms’ responsibility to behave in a lawful manner. However, as drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, every organ of the society is called upon to respect human rights; this point was later implied in the international initiative which were born, starting from the UN Guiding Principles to the UN Global Compact, paving the way for further regional and private initiative discussed in the present document. Nonetheless, these maintain a voluntary access and are able to bind merely those who adhere to them. Therefore, the current field of Business and Human Rights seems to be expanding, even by virtue of the help granted by NGOs and the civil society, yet further steps are to be expected in the next few years.