Normative principles are an essential step towards legally defined standards, says Sir Geoffrey Chandler
John Ruggie’s recently submitted final report to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council (EP8, issue 11)
is – wisely – a staging post and not a destination. To have attempted
too soon the first part of his mandate as UN special representative –
identifying and clarifying standards of corporate responsibility for
human rights – would have plunged the debate back into the quagmire
that the publication of draft Norms on the responsibilities of business
had left it. NGOs and business institutions stood ready to pounce – the
first resenting Ruggie’s criticism of the Norms, the second guarding
against their resurrection. But the Norms were dead, by suicide as much
as by any other cause, and it was important to move the debate on.
Ruggie’s remarkably comprehensive search for evidence does just this.
His report brings together an array of information, painstakingly
gathered by consultations, questionnaires, commissioned research and
openness of process, which will be grist to the mill of all involved in
the subject. That companies impact human rights at many points is no
longer in question. The challenge today is to find ways to encourage or
enforce behaviour consistent with the values of society. This lies at
the heart of the report. ‘Permissive conditions for business-related
human rights abuses’, writes Ruggie succinctly, ‘are created by a
misalignment between economic forces and governance capacity’.
The exercise of law – governance capacity – is theoretically the way
ahead. But international human rights law has yet to be adequately
translated into national law, and global treaties are a distant
prospect. Moreover, in weak or failed states, a frequent context today
for corporate activity, the law may in practice be meaningless. In its
place have developed voluntary initiatives, collectively known as ‘soft
law’, to encourage responsible behaviour. But they do not cover the
whole of business and fail to influence a market dominated by
short-term considerations.
In principle, however, they point the way forward. ‘Soft law’s
normative role’ says Ruggie, ‘remains essential to elaborating and
further developing standards of corporate responsibility’. This is the
crux of the matter. Normative principles, a synonym preferable to the
oxymoron ‘soft law’, are the essential staging post towards legally
defined standards. They could, if adopted by the UN, have an impact on
corporate behaviour by providing the market for the first time with
internationally validated non-financial criteria for the comparative
assessment of corporate performance. It is for this that we need an
extension of Ruggie’s mandate.
We do not need further evidence gathering. We now need, from both NGOs
and companies, greater statesmanship than either have so far shown and,
crucially, participation from governments if we are to harness the
influence of the corporate sector in support of human rights. It is in
the interests of all to see the task completed.
Sir Geoffrey Chandler was founder-chair of Amnesty International UK Business Group
