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The purpose of this paper is to examine the state-business nexus in responses to human rights violations in businesses and questions the efficacy of the UN guiding principles on human rights in businesses, in particular in the ready-made garments (RMG) industry in Bangladesh. Drawing on Cohen’s notion of “denial” and Black’s (2008) legitimacy and accountability relationships of state and non-state actors, the study seeks to explain why such “soft” global regulations remain inadequate.

The empirical work for this paper is based on the authors’ participation in two multiple-stakeholder advisory consultation meetings for the RMG sector in Bangladesh and 11 follow-up interviews. This is supplemented by documentary evidence on human rights disasters, responses of the state and non-state actors and human rights reports published in national and international newspapers.

The paper provides clear evidence that the state-business nexus perpetuates human rights disasters. The study also shows that the Bangladeshi state, ruled by family-led political parties, is more inclined to protect businesses that cause human rights disasters than to ensure human rights in businesses. The economic conditions of the RMG industry and accountability and legitimacy relationships between state and non-state actors have provided the necessary background for RMG owners to continue to violate the safety and security of the workplace and maintain inhumane working conditions.

Complex state politics, including family, kinship and wealthy supporters, and economic circumstances have serious implications for the efficacy of the UN guiding principle on human rights for business. This paper calls for broader political and economic changes, nationally and internationally.

The study highlights the perpetuation of corporate human rights abuses by the state-business nexus, and indicates that human rights issues continue to be ignored through a discourse of denial. This is explained in terms of legitimacy and accountability relationships between state and non-state actors, bounded by complex political and economic conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical model for systematizing human rights norms to facilitate their integration into global business decision making.

The paper relates a natural law conception of human rights to global corporate governance.

The paper shows that natural law theory gives a basis for integrating human rights into global governance while also making a business case for taking human rights seriously.

The paper offers a theoretical framework related to jurisprudence and introduces the concept of reputational capital as an intangible asset that is built up by a firm's proactive advancement of human rights.

The purpose of this paper is to map out the voluntary‐regulatory dynamics of the discourse of human rights in a business context within the European Union (EU) regulatory environment.

The paper examines the human rights and corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourses at the EU institutional level, in order to identify the interplay between soft and hard regulatory instruments that may contribute to the “human rights for business” normative landscape.

A renewed focus at the international level on business and human rights has recently produced a United Nations (UN) framework document mapping corporate and state responsibilities in the area of human rights (the UN SRSG Ruggie Framework). Emphasising voluntariness as main tool, but also recognizing the importance of domestic uses of corporate law, of the investment and trade agreements, as well as of the international development cooperation tools, this framework report is in need of “operationalisation”. Starting from the interface between domestic and international developments in CSR and human rights for business, the paper explores the extent to which the European CSR context can offer tools and instruments towards such an operationalisation of the corporate responsibility for human rights and for social values generally. The article charts the dynamic relationship between EU soft regulatory attempts and the community mandatory legislation. Together, these define the EU's policy on CSR and human rights.

The paper reveals an innovative normative mosaic, made up of complex soft and hard regulatory instruments that should enable the EU to integrate economic, trade and human rights policies and, ultimately, to contribute to the new CSR framework proposed at the international level.

This paper aims to examine the impact of a US law, called Alien Tort Statute (ATS), on the overseas operations of multinational corporations with regard to human rights abuses. The law has the potential of creating substantial financial liabilities and operational risks for the multinational corporations (MNCs) by allowing foreign citizens to bring cases in the US courts for acts committed in a foreign country.

The paper reviews the relevant case law and the decisions of the US highest court in outlining the expanding scope of corporate culpability and financial liability.

The paper undertakes a careful critique of the arguments made by the MNCs as to the scope and reach of the law. It concludes that these arguments are not tenable in terms of MNCs' own professed commitment to protecting human rights. It also finds that the law's intent as interpreted in various decisions of the US federal courts has led to further clarity and specificity as to obligations of the MNCs.

MNCs must take concrete steps to ensure that their overseas operations are not implicated in human rights abuses. Specific approaches are suggested to comply with the law.

This paper scrutinizes the impact of socioeconomic, political, legal and religious factors on the internal ethical values of human rights organizations (HROs) worldwide. The authors aim to examine the Code of Ethics for 279 HROs in 67 countries and the social and legal settings in which they operate.

Using the framework of protect, respect and remedy, the authors look for keywords that represent the human rights lexicon in these three areas. In the protection of human rights, the authors select the terms: peace, transparency, freedom and security. For the respect of humans, the authors use the terms: dignity, equality, respect and rights. Sources of remedies come from justice and ethics. The analysis seeks to determine what political economy settings drive the ethical value choices of the organizations. Those choices are proxied by those keywords they mention in their Code of Ethics.

The analysis show that the scope of ethical values mentioned are higher when the HRO is in a country with more domestic violence, lower income inequality, French civil or Islamic legal origin and higher trust in politicians. In regard to the determinants of the ten keywords individually, the authors conclude that the status of the socioeconomic, political, religious and legal settings impact with local HROs mention each of the keywords: peace, justice, transparency, dignity, equality, ethics, respect, freedom, security and rights.

The analysis is based on HROs that have a webpage in English and list the employee Code of Conduct.

This study is the first to examine the Code of Ethics for HROs. The authors demonstrate that country-specific characteristics help to drive their internal ethical values.

Purpose – To examine corporate social responsibility in cyberspace within the context of the experience of Google Corporation in China in order to provide greater understanding of the complexities that corporations encounter when operating across cyber borders.Design/methodology/approach – The research is grounded in the theoretical debate: The Internet as democratic and universal space versus the Internet as autocratic and sovereign space. Historical analysis is drawn from the case of Google Corporation in China.Findings – Freedom in cyberspace is more likely to be advanced universally with a collective commitment to corporate social responsibility in the information technology sector.Research limitations/implications – The study provides insights into the appropriate balance between the ethical responsibilities of the firm and its need to compete and survive in the highly competitive information age.Originality/value of chapter – The case of Google Corporation in China offers a venue for further discussion on the ethical role of transnational information technology corporations and their improvements in fostering human rights and free enterprise in cyberspace.

Purpose – To argue for the use of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) proves far more useful in assessing arms makers’ limits of responsibility in a different way altogether. By focusing on the negative ‘externalities’ – that is impact on society – we are able to examine the practice in the context of constitutive and regulatory norms (i.e. the accepted rules), as opposed to norms that are merely evaluative (i.e. moral) or practical (i.e. what's possible).

Methodology/approach – This chapter examines the investment policies, practices and procedures of a handful of Australian pension and sovereign wealth funds in relation to investment in the development and production of cluster munitions – a class of weapon banned under international law since August 2010.

Findings – The chapter finds that the negative externalities inherent in armaments manufacturing demand that institutional investors view such firms through a ‘CSI lens’, especially when tasked with identifying and developing strategies to account for emerging social norms such as the prohibition of cluster munitions.

Practical implications – The investor is advantaged by having at its disposal a roadmap for managing – though not necessarily predicting – emerging social norms. This is so for ethical, responsible and mainstream investment approaches, although is most readily compatible with investors who have pre-established exclusionary policies as well as effective implementation procedures.

Social implications – A CSI approach to investment in cluster munitions as outlined in this chapter benefits society by inducing economic actors, such as pension and sovereign wealth funds, to direct their capital in such a way as to minimize humanitarian and environmental harm.

Originality/value of chapter – Proponents of the social responsibility of business and investment have seldom assessed the makers of conventional armaments such as machine guns, attack helicopters and battle tanks. Fewer still have attempted to devise and implement such programs within firms. Simply put, the prevailing argument is that arms makers and their financers are not capable of being socially responsible.

The purpose of this paper is to pursue the dialogue on the global firms’ regulation vis-à-vis human rights and labor standards in developing countries.

Locke’s book The Promise and Limits of Private Power is analyzed and discussed with respect to more recent global regulation literature and mechanisms.

Locke advocates that private voluntary regulation has to be combined with local laws in developing countries to fully enforce labor standards and workers’ rights. In light of recent changes, the interesting model proposed by Locke shows some weaknesses.

To enforce labor standards and workers’ rights in developing countries, the author argue that governments in developed countries need to be seen as major players in multinational corporations (MNCs) regulations. But above all, the economic model needs to be questioned.