Hiding in the Light: The Misuse of Disclosure to Advance the Business and Human Rights Agenda

IF 1.2 4区 社会学 Q2 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Columbia Journal of Transnational Law Pub Date : 2017-08-29 DOI:10.2139/SSRN.3028826
Jena Martin
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引用次数: 2

Abstract

In June 2017, Waitrose, a top UK supermarket, pulled its cans of corned beef off the shelves after an investigation revealed that the meat might have been produced with slave labor. At the time of the recall, Waitrose was in compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act, a 2015 law enacted to prevent human trafficking and modern-day slavery. Under the Modern Slavery Act, corporations are required to file annual reports disclosing what action they had taken to eradicate slavery and human trafficking in their supply chains. The Modern Slavery Act was a much-lauded law that is part of the growing trend of States to move the international business and human rights agenda forward. A key component of that agenda involves disseminating the U.N.’s Protect, Respect, and Remedy Framework and implementing the U.N. Guiding Principles, which have been praised by States around the world as a framing mechanism for assessing corporate accountability for negative human rights impacts caused by a corporation’s operations and relationships with its suppliers. This article analyzes whether the business and human rights agenda (as embodied by the Three Pillar Framework and U.N. Guiding Principles) is well served by national laws that focus on disclosure. The article focuses primarily on rules being implemented in the United States at both the subnational and national level; however, it also discusses approaches being used in European jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom and France and the overall trend towards a transparency model for human rights protection made necessary by business activities. The increased use of disclosure-based regulation (and the resulting compliance efforts by corporations) seems to come, at least in part, as a result of the efforts by States to address the duties laid out for them in the U.N. Guiding Principles. As such, it is appropriate to undertake an analysis regarding whether these laws are in fact effectively implementing the Guiding Principles. For decades now, disclosure has been held out as the ultimate curative for almost every corporate woe. The expansion of disclosure initiatives from mere investment-related issues to (increasingly) social-policy issues suggest that this trend will continue. Yet, as this article demonstrates, disclosure right now is at best a temporary stop gap measure that can lead to limited corporate change on the issue of business and human rights. At worst, disclosure is being used by corporations as a way to obtain a reputational advantage without actually making substantive changes – by simply hiding in the light.
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隐藏在光中:滥用信息披露来推进商业和人权议程
2017年6月,英国顶级超市维特罗斯(Waitrose)从货架上撤下了腌牛肉罐头,此前调查显示,这些肉可能是用奴工生产的。在召回时,Waitrose遵守了英国现代奴隶制法案,这是2015年颁布的一项法律,旨在防止人口贩运和现代奴隶制。根据《现代奴隶制法案》(Modern Slavery Act),企业必须提交年度报告,披露它们在消除供应链中的奴隶制和人口贩运方面采取了哪些行动。《现代奴隶制法》是一项广受赞誉的法律,是各国推动国际商业和人权议程的日益增长趋势的一部分。这一议程的一个关键组成部分是传播联合国的《保护、尊重和补救框架》,并实施联合国指导原则。联合国指导原则受到世界各国的赞扬,被视为评估企业对企业经营及其与供应商的关系造成的负面人权影响的责任的框架机制。本文分析了注重信息披露的国家法律是否很好地服务于企业和人权议程(体现在三大支柱框架和联合国指导原则中)。本文主要关注美国在地方和国家层面实施的规则;不过,报告也讨论了联合王国和法国等欧洲司法管辖区正在使用的办法,以及商业活动所必需的人权保护透明度模式的总体趋势。越来越多地使用基于披露的监管(以及由此产生的公司合规努力),似乎至少在一定程度上是由于各国努力履行联合国指导原则中为它们规定的义务。因此,有必要对这些法律是否实际上有效地执行了《指导原则》进行分析。几十年来,信息披露一直被认为是解决几乎所有企业困境的终极良方。信息披露倡议从单纯的投资相关问题扩展到(越来越多的)社会政策问题,这表明这一趋势将继续下去。然而,正如本文所展示的那样,目前的披露充其量是一种临时的权宜之计,可能会导致企业在商业和人权问题上做出有限的改变。最坏的情况是,信息披露被企业用作获取声誉优势的一种方式,而无需做出实质性改变——仅仅是隐藏在聚光灯下。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
1.30
自引率
10.00%
发文量
10
期刊介绍: Over forty years] ago, under the guidance of the late Professor Wolfgang Friedmann, a group of Columbia law students belonging to the Columbia Society of International Law founded the Bulletin of the Columbia Society of International Law. The Bulletin’s first volume, containing two issues, was a forum for the informal discussion of international legal questions; the second volume, published in 1963 under the title International Law Bulletin, aspired more to the tradition of the scholarly law review. Today’s Columbia Journal of Transnational Law is heir to those early efforts.
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User-Generated Evidence The Domestic Standing of International Law: A Non-State Account The State Power to Boycott a Boycott:: The Thorny Constitutionality of State Anti-BDS Laws Conceiving Criminality: An Evaluation of Abortion Decriminalization Reform in New York and Great Britain Hiding in the Light: The Misuse of Disclosure to Advance the Business and Human Rights Agenda
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