This text considers the issues of world poverty and global justice, addressing the ability of people in poor or developing countries to have enough food, or clean water, or access to basic healthcare. It draws on international law aimed at the protection and promotion of human rights.

Written by a highly respected panel of experts, this book examines the difficult and nuanced questions associated with corporate accountability from all sides. This book contributes unique and thoughtful perspectives, legally grounded and passionately contended, to the ongoing dialogue about the intersection of human rights and corporate responsibility. Corporate Responsibility for Human Rights Impacts focuses mainly on developments in the United States and the United Kingdom, although examples of legal developments in corporate accountability for human rights in developing countries are discussed in many chapters. This book considers the question: how will lawyers and courts deal with the thorny issue of extraterritoriality in transnational litigation brought against companies for human rights abuses abroad?

Enderle illustrates the importance of corporate responsibility by integrating wealth creation and human rights. An invaluable reference for students, teachers and researchers in business and economic ethics, social sciences and human rights studies, as well as for leaders in business, civil society organizations and international institutions.

Corporate Social Responsibility, Human Rights and the Law examines the responsibilities of business enterprises for human rights from a legal perspective. It analyses the legal status of the ‘corporate responsibility to respect human rights’ as articulated by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). This concept currently reflects an international consensus and is promoted by the UN. The book contemplates the various founding perspectives of the UNGPs, and how the integration of notions such as ‘principled pragmatism’ and ‘polycentric governance’ within its framework provides insights into the future course of law and policy, compliance, and corporate respect for human rights. The book thus takes a global focus, examining the interaction of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), human rights, and the law in a broader global governance context. Setting out a possible future scenario for the legalization of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights that is informed by the UNGPs' founding perspectives and reflects current realities in the human rights landscape, this book will be of great interest to scholars of business ethics, international human rights law, and CSR more broadly.

This volume presents corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a series of economic and political strategies that are currently shifting the focus of international human rights activism and signalling the rise of new forms of global governance. In as much as the work demonstrates the limitations of CSR and offers a critical perspective on corporate techniques of market domination, it also posits a future for CSR within the human rights movement.

The Global Citizenship Commission was convened, under the leadership of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the auspices of NYU’s Global Institute for Advanced Study, to re-examine the spirit and stirring words of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The result – this volume – offers a 21st-century commentary on the original document, furthering the work of human rights and illuminating the ideal of global citizenship. What does it mean for each of us to be members of a global community? Since 1948, the Declaration has stood as a beacon and a standard for a better world. Yet the work of making its ideals real is far from over. Hideous and systemic human rights abuses continue to be perpetrated at an alarming rate around the world. Too many people, particularly those in power, are hostile to human rights or indifferent to their claims. Meanwhile, our global interdependence deepens. Bringing together world leaders and thinkers in the fields of politics, ethics, and philosophy, the Commission set out to develop a common understanding of the meaning of global citizenship – one that arises from basic human rights and empowers every individual in the world. This landmark report affirms the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and seeks to renew the 1948 enterprise, and the very ideal of the human family, for our day and generation.

This book critically evaluates the Ruggie Framework and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and investigates the normative foundations as well as the nature, extent and enforcement of corporate obligations for the realisation of human rights.