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Climate Change as a Business and Human Rights Issue: A Proposal for a Moral Typology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2019

Kristian Høyer TOFT Open the ORCID record for Kristian Høyer TOFT [Opens in a new window]
Kristian Høyer TOFT*
Affiliation:
Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, and Center for Applied Philosophy, Department of Learning and Culture, Aalborg University, Denmark. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
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Abstract

To explore the emerging and contested issue of business and human rights in the area of climate change, this article provides a critical discussion from the viewpoint of moral philosophy. A novel typology of businesses’ human rights duties (‘duty’ is considered synonymous with ‘responsibility’ here) is proposed. It claims that duties are both forward- and backward-looking. Cases of human rights litigation seeking remedy for climate-related harms are backward-looking, and duties should be determined on the basis of proportion of historical emissions, culpable knowledge and counter-acts to abate climate harms. Businesses’ forward-looking duties, however, depend on their power, privilege, interest and collective abilities. The typology is then assessed against the background of recent legal principles and instruments. It is concluded that moral duties of business reach beyond mere respect for human rights and national jurisdictions in the context of climate change.

Keywords

climate justicecorporate dutiescorporate citizenshiphistorical responsibility
Type
Scholarly Articles
Information
Business and Human Rights Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

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Footnotes

‡

The author is a member of the research project ‘Ethics and Energy’, which has obtained funding from The Independent Research Fund Denmark – Humanities from 2014–2019 (grant number: 214681669). The article is considered a part of this project.

§

I am grateful for the help received as this article developed. Comments and suggestions from the reviewers and the editor, Florian Wettstein, contributed much to the writing of the article. Also, Sarah Seck, Annalisa Savaresi, Marco Grasso, Säde Hormio and Ann E. Mayer each shared their valuable insights into this contested, difficult and emerging field of research. Any shortcoming or fault is solely on my part.

References

1 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), ‘Understanding Climate Change’, submission to the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’ 2015, 4, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/ClimateChange/COP21.pdf (accessed 22 September 2019).

Note that businesses are here considered ‘duty-bearers’, and therefore not merely ascribed ‘responsibility’ to respect human rights as otherwise recommended in the United Nations ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework’, A/HRC/17/31 (31 March 2011), http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf (accessed 22 September 2019) (UNGPs).

The terms ‘duties’ and ‘responsibilities’ are used interchangeably in this article, following the use of Shue, Henry, ‘Responsible for What? Carbon Producer CO2 Contributions and the Energy Transition’ (2017) 144:4Climatic ChangeCrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Wettstein, Florian, ‘Normativity, Ethics, and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: A Critical Assessment’ (2015) 14:2Journal of Human RightsCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Furthermore, the corporate moral duties considered regard both backward-looking acts and omissions that could render a business culpable and liable, but also forward-looking duties to seek knowledge about business impacts on human rights in the context of climate change, for instance, by conducting proper due diligence. Such corporate duties, however, are not constrained to mere instrumental risk management or legal criminal culpability, as they are also moral duties.

2 UN resolutions explicitly address human rights as a climate change issue (7/23 in 2008; 10/4 in 2009; 18/22 in 2011; 26/27 in 2014; 29/15 in 2015; 38/4 in 2018), epitomized in the Preamble of the Paris Agreement: ‘Acknowledging that climate change is a common concern of humankind, Parties should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights’, United Nations, The Paris Agreement (UNFCCC, 2015), https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf (accessed 22 September 2019).

3 The terms corporation, business and enterprise are used synonymously.

4 See Figure 1. With the exception of closely related research in legal theory (Seck, Sara L, ‘Revisiting Transnational Corporations and Extractive Industries: Climate Justice, Feminism, and State Sovereignty’ (2017) 26 Transnational Law & Contemporary ProblemsGoogle Scholar; Bach, Tracy, ‘Human Rights in a Climate Changed World: The Impact of COP21, Nationally Determined Contributions, and National Courts’ (2016) 40 Vermont Law ReviewGoogle Scholar), the research in business ethics and human rights (Wettstein, note 1; Santoro, Michael A, ‘Business and Human Rights in Historical Perspective’ (2015) 14:2Journal of Human RightsCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hsieh, Nien-he , ‘Should Business Have Human Rights Obligations?’ (2015) 14:2Journal of Human RightsCrossRefGoogle Scholar) has not yet addressed the issue of climate change. The research on business ethics and corporate social responsibility with regard to climate change is currently developing (Wright, Christopher and Nyberg, Daniel, Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Arnold, Dennis G, ‘Corporate Responsibility, Democracy, and Climate Change’ (2016) 40:1 Midwest Studies in PhilosophyCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hormio, Säde S, ‘Can Corporations Have (Moral) Responsibility Regarding Climate Change Mitigation?’ (2017) 20:3Ethics, Policy & EnvironmentCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marco Grasso and Katia Vladimirova, ‘A Moral Analysis of Carbon Majors’ Role in Climate Change’ (forthcoming) Environmental Values), but it does not address the topic of human rights directly.

5 Annalisa Savaresi and Jacques Hartmann, ‘The Impacts of Climate Change and Human Rights: Some Early Reflections on the Carbon Majors Inquiry’ (2 November 2018), available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3277568 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3277568 (accessed 22 September 2019) 1. The assumption of a symmetrical relationship between rights holders and duty bearers is reflected in the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights outlining the ‘rights-based approach to climate change’ as follows: ‘The rights-holders  and their entitlements must be identified as well as the corresponding duty-bearers  and their obligations in order to find ways to strengthen the capacities of rights-holders to make their claims and of duty-bearers to meet their obligations’, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Climate Change – Overview’, OHCHR (2017), http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/HRAndClimateChange/Pages/HRClimateChangeIndex.aspx (accessed 22 September 2019). If human rights claims are meant only to be aspirational, and therefore do not require symmetry between human rights holders and duty bearers, it becomes less difficult to defend the claim to human rights protections in the case of climate change. This is so, because the causal relationship between emitters and climate victims is difficult to trace. However, this is challenged by Heede, Richard, ‘Tracing Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide and Methane Emissions to Fossil Fuel and Cement Producers’ (2014) 122:1–2Climatic ChangeCrossRefGoogle Scholar in the case of the carbon majors.

6 Especially, what human rights responsibilities can be ascribed to non-state actors such as corporations. See Expert Group on Climate Obligations of Enterprises, Principles on Climate Obligations of Enterprises (The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, 2018); Sara L Seck, ‘Business Responsibilities for Human Rights and Climate Change – A Contribution to the Work of the Study Group on Business and Human Rights of the International Law Association’ (draft version 25 May 2017), available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2974768 (accessed 22 September 2019); Jan Van de Venis and Birgitte Feiring, Climate Change – A Human Rights Concern (The Danish Institute for Human Rights, 2016) https://www.humanrights.dk/sites/humanrights.dk/files/media/billeder/nyheder/final_dihr_hr_and_cc_paper_3_11_16.pdf (accessed 22 September 2019); International Bar Association, Achieving Justice and Human Rights in an Era of Climate Disruption (London: IBA, 2014), https://www.ibanet.org/PresidentialTaskForceClimateChangeJustice2014Report.aspx (accessed 22 September 2019).

7 Hsieh, note 4.

8 Heede, note 5; Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Petition to the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines Requesting for Investigation of the Responsibility of the Carbon Majors for Human Rights Violations or Threats of Violations Resulting from the Impacts of Climate Change (2015), https://www.greenpeace.org/seasia/ph/PageFiles/735291/CC%20HR%20Petition_public%20version.pdf (accessed 22 September 2019); Frumhoff, Peter C, Heede, Richard and Oreskes, Naomi, ‘The Climate Responsibilities of Industrial Carbon Producers’ (2015) 132:2 Climatic ChangeCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Savaresi and Hartmann, note 5. The carbon majors’ case is also referred to in the recent Human Rights Council (the Alston Report), Climate Change and Poverty: Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, 2019, A/HRC/41/39. The report is critiqued for overlooking available legal tools to combat climate change by targeting non-state actors like the carbon majors. See Sara Seck, Meinhard Doelle and Lisa Benjamin, ‘The Climate Emergency and Human Rights: Reflections on the Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty’, Environmental Law News (23 July 2019),

https://blogs.dal.ca/melaw/2019/07/23/the-climate-emergency-and-human-rights-reflections-on-the-report-of-the-special-rapporteur-on-extreme-poverty/ (accessed 22 September 2019).

9 Shue, note 1; Young, Iris Marion, Responsibility for Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 I thank a reviewer for raising the relevant question about whether or not the typology would demand a duty to seek knowledge about business impacts on human rights in the context of climate change, e.g., through a due diligence process. I agree that such a duty is important, and thus the typology suggested here builds on the general assumption that it is always a corporate moral responsibility to seek such knowledge and be transparent to the public about it in reporting and communication.

11 The UN Special Representative for Business and Human Rights (2005–2011), John Ruggie, is explicit about an inspiration from Young’s notion of shared responsibility in his understanding of complicity and sphere of influence (Ruggie, John G, ‘Business and Human Rights: The Evolving International Agenda’ (2007) 101:4American Journal of International LawGoogle Scholar). For an overview of applying Young’s notion of responsibility to the business sphere, see Wettstein, Florian, ‘Corporate Responsibility in the Collective Age: Toward a Conception of Collaborative Responsibility’ 117:2 (2012) Business and Society ReviewCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Hormio, note 4.

13 United Nations, note 2. Article 8.1 explicitly mentions that ‘[p]arties recognize the importance of averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change’, but parties are states, and there is no explicit mentioning of (financial) compensation for ‘loss and damage’. However, the loss and damage mechanism might provide momentum for considering (financial) compensation also. For an overview, see Meinhard Doelle and Sara L Seck, ‘Loss and Damage from Climate Change: A Maturing Concept in Climate Law?’ (10 January 2019), available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3313416 (accessed 22 September 2019).

14 Hsieh, note 4, 219; Mayer, Ann E, ‘Human Rights as a Dimension of CSR: The Blurred Lines Between Legal and Non-Legal Categories’ (2009) 88:S4 Journal of Business EthicsCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brenkert, George G, ‘Business Ethics and Human Rights: An Overview’ (2016) 1:2Business and Human Rights JournalCrossRefGoogle Scholar. A proponent of the ‘moral view’ of human rights is Amartya Sen: ‘Human rights can be seen as primarily ethical demands. They are not principally “legal”, “proto-legal” or “ideal-legal” commands. Even though human rights can, and often do, inspire legislation, this is a further fact, rather than a constitutive characteristic of human rights’ in 319 Sen, Amartya, ‘Elements of a Theory of Human Rights’ (2004) 32:4Philosophy and Public AffairsCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Business and Human Rights, ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human Rights’, A/HRC/8/5 (2008), http://dag.un.org/bitstream/handle/11176/269890/A_HRC_8_5-EN.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y (accessed 22 September 2019).

16 For instance, Wettstein, note 1.

17 Santoro, note 4, 158. Watt-Cloutier , Sheila, in her book The Right to be Cold – One Woman’s Fight to Protect the Arctic and Save the Planet from Climate Change (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015) xxiiGoogle Scholar, argues with regard to climate change, that ‘[a] human rights-based approach takes the path of principle, showing us that fundamental change is not just sound policy but also an ethical imperative’. This remark is an example of the co-creation between the moral and the institutional (strategic) conceptions. Savaresi and Hartmann, note 5, 1, in a similar vein ‘critically appraise[s] the role of human rights law in solving complex questions associated with responsibility for the impacts of climate change as a gap-filler, until other areas of law can satisfactorily address the adverse impact of climate change’.

18 UNGPs, note 1.

19 Simon Caney, for instance, argues that ‘persons have the human right not to suffer from the disadvantages generated by global climate change … drought and crop failure, heatstroke, infectious diseases, flooding, enforced relocation and rapid, unpredictable and dramatic changes to their natural, social and economic world’ (‘Cosmopolitan Justice, Responsibility, and Global Climate Change’ (2005) 18:4 Leiden Journal of International Law 768).

20 The dispute between Hsieh (note 4), who defends an ideal of status egalitarianism that disqualifies private corporations from being human rights duty bearers, and Arnold, Dennis G, ‘On the Division of Moral Labour for Human Rights Between States and Corporations: A Reply to Hsieh’ (2017) 2:2 Business and Human Rights JournalGoogle Scholar, who argues that they are qualified qua moral agents to have human rights obligations (although different from the state’s obligations).

21 Santoro, Michael A, ‘Post-Westphalia and its Discontents: Business, Globalization, and Human Rights in Political and Moral Perspective’ (2010) 20:2Business Ethics QuarterlyCrossRefGoogle Scholar 292.

22 Brenkert, note 14, 305.

23 Heede, note 5, 237; Ekwurzel, Brenda, James Boneham, M W Dalton, Richard Heede, R J Mera, M R Allen and Peter C Frumhoff, ‘The Rise in Global Atmospheric CO2, Surface Temperature, and Sea Level from Emissions Traced to Major Carbon Producers’ (2017) 144:4Climatic ChangeCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Frumhoff et al, note 8; CIEL – Center for International Environmental Law, Smoke and Fumes. The Legal and Evidentiary Basis for Holding Big Oil Accountable for the Climate Crisis (Washington and Geneva: CIEL, 2017), https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Smoke-Fumes-FINAL.pdf (accessed 22 September 2019); CDP – Carbon Disclosure Project, The Carbon Majors Database – CDP Carbon Majors Report (10 July 2017), https://www.cdp.net/en//articles/media/new-report-shows-just-100-companies-are-source-of-over-70-of-emissions (accessed 22 September 2019).

25 Greenpeace Southeast Asia, note 8, 5.

26 The Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines has responded to the petition by initiating a National Inquiry of Climate Change. As the Petition breaks new ground by litigating corporations not domiciled within the Philippines’ jurisdiction, the Commission offers a ‘forum’ for dialogue on climate justice for all affected parties globally. A series of hearings have been arranged in London, Manilla and New York. The carbon majors have also been given a chance to respond, but so far they have avoided dialogue. The Commissions’ work can be accessed here: https://essc.org.ph/content/nicc/ (accessed 22 September 2019).

27 Greenpeace Southeast Asia, note 8, 30.

28 Ibid, 13.

29 Ibid, 19.

30 Seck, note 4, 17.

31 Ibid, 25.

32 In moral theory the possibility of corporate moral agency is a contested issue, for instance in O’Neill, Onora, ‘Agents of Justice’ (2001) 32:1–2Metaphilosophy.Google Scholar For a recent overview, Orts, Eric W and Smith, N Craig (eds.), The Moral Responsibility of Firms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Ganguly, Geetanjali, Setzer, Joana and Heyvaert, Veerle, ‘If at First You Don’t Succeed: Suing Corporations for Climate Change’ (2018) 38:4Oxford Journal of Legal StudiesCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 According to Savaresi and Hartmann, note 5, 2, the access to remedy based on litigation has not yet (until 2018) succeeded, as ‘no court has found that particular emissions relate causally to adverse climate change impacts for the purpose of establishing liability. Still, recent years have witnessed a surge in litigation, including requests for compensation for harm associated with the impacts of climate change.’

35 Van der Venis and Feiring, note 6, 16.

36 Schrempf-Stirling , Judith and Wettstein, Florian, ‘Beyond Guilty Verdicts: Human Rights Litigation and its Impact on Corporations’ Human Rights Policies’ (2017) 145:3 Journal of Business EthicsCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Savaresi and Hartmann, note 5, helpfully refer to the litigation database curated by the Sabin Centre at Columbia Law School at http://climatecasechart.com (accessed 22 September 2019).

37 Friends of the Earth, ‘Notice Letter Shell’ (4 April 2018) 2, https://en.milieudefensie.nl/news/noticeletter-shell.pdf

(accessed 22 September 2019).

38 Ibid, 3.

39 Ibid, 5.

40 Ibid.

41 Danish Institute for Human Rights, ‘Climate Change is a Human Rights Concern’ (4 November 2016), https://www.humanrights.dk/news/climate-change-human-rights-concern (accessed 22 September 2019).

42 Shue, note 1.

43 Shue, note 1, 594.

44 Grasso and Vladimirova, note 4, provide a similar analysis of ‘morally relevant facts’ that determine a carbon major’s responsibilities (moral rather than human rights, however). These are knowledge, timing, capacity, denial and enrichment. These five criteria, or morally relevant facts, as the authors prefer, are compatible with the three criteria suggested here to encompass the backward-looking responsibilities. However, I would stress that the apportionment of emissions is a morally relevant fact to address what is missing in Grasso and Vladimirova’s framework. They seem to leave it out because they distinguish between causal and moral responsibility, and proportion can be seen as mere causal responsibility, which by itself does not qualify as a sufficient reason for moral responsibility.

45 Shue, note 1, 594–595.

46 Shue, Henry, Basic Rights – Subsistence, Affluence and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996) 167–168Google Scholar.

47 Shue, note 1, 594–595.

48 Shue, note 46, 18.

49 Ibid, 23.

50 Wettstein, Florian, ‘CSR and the Debate on Business and Human Rights: Bridging the Great Divide’ (2012) 22:4Business Ethics QuarterlyCrossRefGoogle Scholar 752.

51 Ibid, 753.

52 Heede, note 5, 238.

53 Caney, note 19.

54 Arguments for a shared responsibility might also underpin sector responsibility. However, shared responsibility is mainly considered as forward-looking, so it is problematic to deem it backward-looking in order to require that a sector, or a group of corporations, remedy or compensate. Examples of historical rectification for past injustices done by nation-states could provide the baseline for an argument, though.

55 Caney, Simon, ‘Justice and the Distribution of Greenhouse Gas Emissions’ (2009) 5:2Journal of Global Ethics 135CrossRefGoogle Scholar, distinguishes between trade-related and product-related emissions. David Victor has expressed a similar criticism of the blaming of the carbon majors: ‘It’s part of a larger narrative of trying to create villains; to draw lines between producers as responsible for the problem and everyone else as victims. Frankly, we’re all the users and therefore we’re all guilty. To create a narrative that involves corporate guilt as opposed to problem-solving is not going to solve anything’. In the same article, Richard Heede responds that ‘I as a consumer bear some responsibility for my own car, etcetera. But we’re living an illusion if we think we’re making choices, because the infrastructure pretty much makes those choices for us’ (Douglas Starr, ‘Just 90 Companies are to Blame for Most Climate Change, this ‘Carbon Accountant’ Says’, Sciencemag.org (25 August 2016), https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/just-90-companies-are-blame-most-climate-change-carbon-accountant-says (accessed 16 September 2019).

56 Frumhoff et al, note 8, 164.

57 Ibid, 162; Neela Banerjee, ‘Exxon’s Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers in the 1970s Too’ Inside Climate News (22 December 2015), https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122015/exxon-mobil-oil-industry-peers-knew-about-climate-change-dangers-1970s-american-petroleum-institute-api-shell-chevron-texaco (accessed 22 September 2019).

58 Schrempf-Stirling , Judith, Palazzo, Guido and Phillips, Robert A, ‘Historic Corporate Social Responsibility’ (2016) 41:4Academy of Management ReviewCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mena, Mena Sébastien, Rintamaki, Jukka, Fleming, Peter and Spicer, André, ‘On the Forgetting of Corporate Irresponsibility’ (2016) 41:4Academy of Management ReviewCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 Schrempf-Sterling et al, note 58, 715.

60 Ibid, 713.

61 Ibid, 715.

62 Mena et al, note 58, 725.

63 Shue, note 1.

64 Influence Map, Big Oils Real Agenda on Climate Change: How the Oil Majors have Spent $1Bn Since Paris on Narrative Capture and Lobbying on Climate (London: Influence Map, March 2019), https://influencemap.org/report/How-Big-Oil-Continues-to-Oppose-the-Paris-Agreement-38212275958aa21196dae3b76220bddc (accessed 22 September 2019).

65 MarionYoung, Iris, ‘Responsibility and Global Justice: A Social Connection Model’ (2006) 23:1 Social Philosophy & PolicyGoogle Scholar; Young, note 9. The call for a relational understanding of corporate involvement in climate change by Seck (note 4) is, to some extent, found in Young’s social connection model. Young’s forward-looking model of assigning shared responsibility is a modification of the liberal liability model which limits responsibility to individuals, corporate legal persons, or sovereign states.

66 Young, Iris Marion, ‘Katrina: Too Much Blame, Not Enough Responsibility’ (2006) 53:1DissentCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Young, note 65, 125–130; Young, note 9, 142–151.

68 Grasso and Vladimirova, note 4.

69 Neuhäuser, Christian, ‘Structural Injustice and the Distribution of Forward-Looking Responsibility’ (2014) 38:1Midwest Studies in PhilosophyCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 Caney, note 19, could be an example of situating climate justice in a more comprehensive context of a theory of justice, a cosmopolitan one. Neuhäuser, note 69, explicitly argues that Young needs a fuller theory of justice to determine the content of duties from the parameters of reasoning.

71 UNGPs, note 1.

72 Crane, Andrew, Matten, Dirk and Moon, Jeremy, ‘Ecological Citizenship and the Corporation – Politicizing the New Corporate Environmentalism’ (2008) 21 Organization & EnvironmentCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Young, note 9, 144.

74 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment’, A/HRC/37/59 (March 2018) 13, https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Environment/SREnvironment/FrameworkPrinciplesUserFriendlyVersion.pdf (accessed 22 September 2019) (the Knox Report).

75 Young, note 9, 146.

76 Ibid, 147.

77 Ostrom, Elinor, ‘A Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change’ (2009) Policy Research Working Paper, World BankCrossRefGoogle Scholar, http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-5095 (accessed 22 September 2019).

78 IPCC – International Governmental Panel on Climate Change, Global Warming of 1.5°C. Summary for Policymakers (The IPCC Special Report, 2018), https://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf (accessed 22 September 2019).

79 Hsieh, Nien-he , ‘Does Global Business Have a Responsibility to Promote Just Institutions?’ (2009) 19:2Business Ethics QuarterlyCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scherer, Andreas G and Palazzo, Guido, ‘The New Political Role of Business in a Globalized World: A Review of a New Perspective on CSR and its Implications for the Firm, Governance, and Democracy’ (2011) 48 Journal of Management StudiesCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 Matten, Dirk and Crane, Andrew, ‘Corporate Citizenship: Towards an Extended Theoretical Conceptualization’ (2005) 30 Academy of Management ReviewCrossRefGoogle Scholar. The notion of perceiving the corporation as a political agent, or a ‘quasi-state’ is taken as providing the premise for an argument that corporations have extensive human rights duties that cannot be reduced to showing mere ‘respect’ for human rights. Proponents of this view, which is also supported in this article, are Wettstein, note 1 and Arnold, note 20.

81 Scherer and Palazzo, note 79.

82 Dirix, Jo, Wouter Peeters, Johan Eyckmans, Peter T Jones and Sigrid Sterckx, ‘Strengthening Bottom-up and Top-down Climate Governance’ (2013) 13:3Climate PolicyCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 Crane et al, note 72, 386.

84 Ibid.

85 Scherer, Andreas G, Andreas Rasche, Guido Palazzo and André Spicer, ’Managing for Political Corporate Social Responsibility: New Challenges and Directions for PCSR 2.0’ (2016) 53:3Journal of Management Studies 276CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 Crane et al, note 72; cf. Wettstein, Florian and Waddock, Sandra, ‘Voluntary or Mandatory: That is (not) the Question: Linking Corporate Citizenship to Human Rights Obligations for Business’ (2005) 6:3Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und UnternehmensethikCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87 The formulation of the UNGPs is clear on this point: ‘The responsibility to respect human rights is a global standard of expected conduct for all business enterprises wherever they operate. It exists independently of States’ abilities and/or willingness to fulfil their own human rights obligations, and does not diminish those obligations’, UNGPs, note 1, 13.

88 Seck, note 6, 14.

89 Ibid, 2. Also mentioned in Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘The Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights – An Interpretative Guide’ (OHCHR, 2012) 15, https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/HR.PUB.12.2_En.pdf (accessed 22 September 2019).

90 UNGPs, note 1, 20.

91 International Bar Association, note 5, 148.

92 Seck, note 6, 10.

93 ‘Oslo Principles on Global Climate Change Obligations’, Global Justice Program (2015), https://globaljustice.yale.edu/oslo-principles-global-climate-change-obligations (accessed 22 September 2019).

94 Ibid, 3.

95 Expert Group on Climate Obligations of Enterprises, note 6, 7.

96 Ibid, 38.

97 Ibid, 39.

98 Ibid, 40.

99 Ibid, 41.

100 Ibid, 49.