Business and Human Rights: Beyond the End of the Beginning

The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, since their unanimous endorsement by the Human Rights Council in 2011, have been the subject of debate over their content, non-binding nature, and capacity to improve human rights conditions in business proceedings. Analyses of the GPs have tended to focus on the static, such as the standards they include, rather than on their capacity to change, to push the development of new norms and practices that might go beyond the initial content of the GPs and improve corporate compliance with human rights. This book engages both the static and dynamic dimensions of the GPs, and considers the issue through the eyes of scholars and practitioners from different parts of the world—including Ruggie himself. The book takes on the conceptual and legal underpinnings of global governance approaches to BHR, with an emphasis on the Guiding Principles and attention to the current treaty process.

• Offers the first systematic effort by prominent BHR scholars and practitioners to take stock of the GPs and the broader theoretical, legal, and policy debates and initiatives they have sparked
• Contributes to a dynamic and timely debate that has gained widespread attention in academic and policy circles regarding the protection of human rights in business proceedings
• Features chapters by scholars and practitioners from across the globe, including John Ruggie himself