There is currently disagreement in the international sports world about whether Russian and Belarusian athletes should be admitted to international competitions. While initially proposing to ban these athletes, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is now recommending that sports federations readmit Russian and Belarusian athletes under certain conditions. The IOC believes that this is unavoidable in order to respect human rights. Sports federations are invoking their autonomy on this issue, with some following the IOC’s advice, some maintaining a ban, and others allowing unconditional participation. This piece seeks to correct the IOC’s interpretation of the applicable human rights standard. It asserts that sporting bodies must respect human rights, and that the principles of autonomy and neutrality of sport must be considered in light of internationally recognised human rights standards. If these are used as a yardstick, it becomes clear that collective exclusion can be justified in the extreme case of a war of aggression.

This article introduces a novel way in which human rights due diligence can be ‘enhanced’ to respond to business and human rights challenges specific to conflict affected areas. It makes two key arguments. First, it claims that a crucial and often neglected factor for understanding human rights risks in conflict affected areas is that businesses face escalating and largely unpredictable human rights risks once they become involved in conflict. Second, the article shows how integrating aspects of the well-established method of conflict sensitive business practice into human rights due diligence can help companies address this challenge. For instance, companies should include a conflict analysis in human rights impact assessments and systematically identify and address their actual or potential impacts on conflict. This article provides support to a UN Working Group proposal for the integration of conflict sensitive business practices into human rights due diligence.

The attention that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has given to public–private partnerships in solving global concerns including poverty, sustainable development and climate change has shed new light on the question of duties of corporations in relation to economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights. At the same time, objections to recognizing the obligations of corporations in relation to human rights in general and to ESC rights in particular have continued to be made. At the formal level, these objections are reflected in new distinctions such as between the duties of states and responsibilities of corporations, between primary duties of states and secondary duties of corporations, and between obligations of compliance and obligations of performance. All these objections and distinctions are untenable and serve only to stultify the discourse on business and human rights. The current state of human rights is dynamic, not static; commodious, not stale. There is ample space in it to accommodate duties of corporations regarding ESC rights.

In the waning days of the indelible 2020, China and the European Union (EU) clinched an ‘in-principle’ deal on their Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI).1 After seven years of negotiation, the treaty attracted widespread public scrutiny, partly due to the significant investment flows between China and the EU, although wider considerations are also at play. China’s 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization laid a major building block in the global order. Its economic rise and export growth have provided cheaper electronics, appliances and clothes for global consumers, but also prompted concerns about the environment and implications for jobs and working conditions in deindustrializing countries. This economic reconfiguration has created complex, often tense, relations between China and established powers such as the EU and the United States (US), to which multilateral arrangements have offered only partial responses.2

In this paper I use South Africa as a reference point to discuss the company as a juristic person and its relationship to natural persons through the concepts of subjectivity and personhood. I do this in an attempt to reveal that granting of juristic personality as ‘the company’ is not a neutral, organic or inevitable product of the law and economy but a construct symbiotically bound to the colonial state. Underlying this juristic personhood is colonial ideology which perpetuates racialized and gendered poverty and inequality as systemic oppression, in order to deliberately facilitate and maintain conditions of domination and exploitation. Rather than taking the conventional business and human rights starting point that accepts the corporate structure without critique, it is argued that by reorienting away from juristic personality as purportedly ‘neutral’ and reframing the construct, the powers of the company might be curtailed, thereby interrupting these continuing colonial logics.

Business and human rights (BHR) has been taught as an academic discipline and field of practice for thirty years.1 Since the first courses at business schools, law schools, and schools of public policy in North America and Western Europe, BHR curricula have proliferated worldwide. BHR course content has expanded to include new international standards, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs); tools for corporate accountability; 2 and examples from the growing body of corporate BHR practice. BHR pedagogy has evolved to embrace multidisciplinary teaching techniques, from business case studies to legal drafting exercises and experiential role plays.3 BHR teaching is taking place in every region, from Africa and Asia to the Middle East and Latin America. Over 350 individuals teach the subject in some form at more than 200 institutions in 45 countries.4 More than 100 universities have added BHR courses to their curricula in the past decade alone. BHR is also taught outside traditional university settings in dedicated workshops and training programmes for professionals, academics and students.5

Cross-border surrogacy is a global industry that offers intended parents options for family formation by providing foreign surrogate mothers remuneration, directly or via an intermediary, in excess of their actual out-of-pocket expenses. It is a multi-million-dollar business with no international regulation.1 In most countries, limited domestic regulation or oversight is in place. Many countries − such as Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong and South Africa − only permit altruistic surrogacy, while Germany and France ban surrogacy entirely.2 Fully legalized commercial surrogacy is the model followed in some states in the United States of America (USA), as well as Georgia and Ukraine.3 This unregulated cross-border market has produced a lucrative business, with surrogacy arrangements growing by nearly 1,000 per cent between 2006 and 2010.4 The for-profit surrogacy sector has expanded and fertility not-for-profit organizations have also entered the market.5

The take-up of mandatory human rights due diligence (HRDD) initiatives by states is continuously gaining momentum. There are now numerous states adopting some form of HRDD laws. While corporations being duly diligent in respecting human rights is a positive step towards addressing problems of business and human rights, these HRDD initiatives on their own may only be a form of window-dressing, that is, enabling states to put a smart spin on their efforts to address business and human rights issues without addressing some of the root causes of that predicament. As a result, HRDD laws are likely to be a helpful, but insufficient tool for addressing corporate abuse of human rights. One reason for this is because the root cause of many business and human rights problems is the structural elements and goals of corporate law facilitates corporate violations of human rights. So long as states fail to transform the way in which corporations operate – in part, by reconceptualizing corporate law – even the best drafted HRDD laws will be inadequate to halt corporate harms.

The female sexual and reproductive wellness industry is flourishing, valued at around US$4.5trn globally. Heavily focused on the female reproductive life cycle, products are marketed to women and girls from puberty through to the menopausal years, with medically unsubstantiated claims that can fail to deliver on promises made and leave damaging physical and psychological side-effects. In this article we ask: do the harms caused by the sexual and reproductive wellness industry fall within the boundaries of business and human rights (BHR) scholarship? We establish the landscape of the industry, identify human rights relating to sexual and reproductive healthcare and education, and use BHR literature to make the case that the industry should be placed on the BHR research agenda so that the various tools used in BHR such as the law, corporate governance, and the weight of public consciousness, can be applied to encourage appropriate regulation of this industry.

The Kenyan flower industry is one of the largest in the world and it is estimated to contribute around one per cent to Kenya’s gross domestic product (GDP).1 According to the Kenya Flower Council (KFC), Kenya exports about 70 per cent of its cut flowers for sale on the European market.2 Women constitute around 65 to 75 per cent of the workforce in the Kenyan flower industry, performing unskilled and poorly paid jobs.3 Female floriculture workers in Kenya experience high rates of sexual harassment (SH) and other forms of workplace violence.4 SH is deeply rooted in power imbalances between the parties involved, which can impact on the ability of the victim to resist or expressly indicate that the conduct is unwelcome. Such power imbalance can threaten victims into silence, resulting in incidences going unreported.5 According to a study on gender, rights and participation in the cut flower industry in Kenya, SH is particularly prevalent among women who are supervised by male managers.6 It was found that the persistence of SH is related to the hierarchical employment structure of floriculture companies, coupled with the lack of female managerial staff, both of which also prevented women from reporting incidences of SH.

In October 2020, the Government of Japan formulated a National Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights in response to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and ensuing greater international awareness of violations of human rights by corporations.1 In the NAP, the government of Japan stated that on the basis of the UNGPs, it expects companies to (i) formulate human rights policies, (ii) conduct due diligence with respect to human rights, and (iii) establish grievance mechanisms.2 In order to achieve these goals, businesses need to understand whether and how they are violating human rights and prepare appropriate solutions. Whistleblowers play a crucial role in this process.

Over 40 million people around the world are victims of modern forms of slavery: forced labour and human trafficking. People are tricked into working under onerous conditions, and unable to leave or return home due to physical, psychological or financial coercion, and many of these trafficking victims produce goods for United States (US) and other multinational corporations that profit by relying on the lower wages earned by workers in their global supply chains. Well-developed legal standards prohibit these practices, and governments, intergovernmental organizations, business associations and non-governmental organizations have developed mechanisms to prevent, detect and provide redress to victims. Some businesses lead or comply with the standards and enforcement mechanisms, but too many do not. US law offers a powerful but under-utilized tool to address trafficking: the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), which imposes civil liability on those who ‘knew or should have known’ about forced labour or human trafficking in their corporate ventures. Unfortunately, courts have ignored or misinterpreted this standard, at times confusing civil and criminal provisions of the statute. Correct and vigorous legal enforcement is key to addressing the accountability gap between the well-developed standards and the continuing use of forced labour and human trafficking. This article is the first to demonstrate that, with regard to the TVPRA standard, corporations have long been on notice of both the obligation to effectively monitor labour conditions and the mechanisms that would accomplish that task. US courts must enforce the ‘knew or should have known’ standard to protect workers – the most vulnerable people in the supply chain – and to prevent an unfair competitive advantage over companies that have established compliance programmes that actually prevent and punish human trafficking and forced labour.

How do migrant employees understand and articulate human rights in the British hospitality sector? This article contributes to the discussion on the translation of human rights responsibility in business by introducing ‘rights-talk’ as an analytical lens to explore and theorize about employees’ situated understanding and uses of human rights as a language and a moral evaluative frame. The analysis highlights the importance of (in)equality in employees’ everyday experience of rights, and points to several disincentives for them to engage with and in rights-talk including social and organizational disrespect, managerial disregard for employees’ claims, and their largely connotative use of human rights language. These insights advance theorizing and open research avenues on the significance of human rights in organizations from a bottom-up perspective, while the inquiry’s micro-level focus enriches business and human rights’ methodological toolbox. The findings are also significant for business human rights responsibility in contexts of heightened anti-immigration discourse and policies.

This article provides an overview of the key features of multinational human rights litigation in the United Kingdom, including the development of a tort-based parent company duty of care, the principles relating to forum non conveniens and applicable law and other key procedural and practical barriers to victims’ access to justice. The article highlights some of the actual and perceived limitations of litigation. It also considers the concurrent development of and mutually reinforcing relationship between MNC tort litigation and the field of Business & Human Rights.