New Decisions from the Norwegian Pension Fund Global--The Power of Observation and Active Ownership in Private Market Activity and the Application of "Leverage" Under UNGP 19

 

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Norges Bank has just announced the latest batch of decisions:

1. Following a recommendation from the Council on Ethics, the exclusion of the company Mativ Inc (formerly Schweitzer-Mauduit International Inc) has been revoked because the company is no longer involved in tobacco production. Council’s Press Release here: https://etikkradet.no/mativ-inc-revocation-of-exclusion/. Ethics Council Opinion HERE. Not much to see here other than the usual operation of the effectiveness of market nudging which remains the centerpiece of the framing premises for the apparatus of the Pension Fund Global's (PFG) legal-political objectives (while making money). The essence focuses on the transactional nature of markets within the context of a system of bartering in which legal norms and expectations (compliance) serve as objects of value that may be traded for inclusion in an investment universe (and thus provide financial incentives).

2. Following a recommendation from the Council on Ethics, the period of observation of the company Bombardier Inc has been extended due to an unacceptable risk that the company contributes to or is responsible for gross corruption. Council’s Press Release here: https://etikkradet.no/bombardier-inc-extended-observation/. Ethics Council Opinion HERE. This one is also an example of the application of well worn principles.

The decision was based on the fact that Bombardier or its subsidiaries could be linked to allegations or suspicions of corruption in six countries over a period of more than ten years. In its assessment of future risk, the Council attached importance to multiple deficiencies in the company’s follow-up of corruption risk. This included top management’s lack of communication of zero tolerance for corruption, as well as inadequate third-party assessments and follow-up of when corruption was reported.

Like the Mativ determination, here the object was to compel a desired set of internal governance measures to be adopted by the company, as a condition of remaining in the investment universe of the PFG.  The effect is meant to be similar to one grounded in the promulgation of an administrative edict through the application by public officials of regulatory "instructions." But all of this is done without the benefit of law. It is a business transaction essentially a private law bartering that mimics the effects of law but within the context and sensibilities of the market--in return for continued inclusion in the PFG investment universe, compliance with a host of administrative measures and adoption of certain administrative policies and sensibilities is required. That was the essence of the private sector focus of the 2nd Pillar of the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights  which  in its Principle 19  (Commentary) elaborated a theory of action through leverage:

If the business enterprise has leverage to prevent or mitigate the adverse impact, it should exercise it. And if it lacks leverage there may be ways for the enterprise to increase it. Leverage may be increased by, for example, offering capacity-building or other incentives to the related entity, or collaborating with other actors. (UNGP Principle 19 Commentary).

The twist here is that a State organ is using the principle as it inserts itself as an actor in private markets projecting through that device public policy and preferences. That is also contemplated by the UNGPs (eg Principles 3, 4, and 6).  The result is meant to effectively use leverage through active shareholding by PFG to ensure that the "bargain" is fulfilled. Here one finds another example of the exercise of influence

The key here, as in many decisions, was compliance and disclosure related: "Over the observation period Bombardier has provided the Council with limited documentation to show how the company’s anti-corruption and anti-money laundering systems work in practice." Given that determination, the resulting action was almost inevitable (though it might also have produced a decision toe exclude had the application of the Global Pension Fund's risk avoidance principles been applied more strictly. And, indeed, one of the signposts in this matter was the underling and critical importance not of the substantive framework on which the decision is based but rather o the development and application of the calculus of risk--and more importantly on the perhaps shifting line between acceptable and unacceptable risk in specific contexts, an actin that tests the ability of an administrative apparatus to be consistent and principles in the exercise of its discretionary powers within a rules based framework.

The decision might also serve as a reminder--even as elite circles deepen their ideological commitment to the inevitable and necessity principle of the superiority of legalized administrative architectures to managing business conduct-production-sensibilities aligned to state policy (something the Soviets theorized better)--that techno-bureaucratic management can as easily be directed form within the market as from outside of it. The trick here is to align the internal corporate techno-bureaucracies with those of the compliance based public organs of the administrative apparatus of a state. All of this strengthens the "liberal" part of liberal democracy, and perhaps at the expense of the "democracy" part.

3. The Council on Ethics has recommended the exclusion from the Fund of the companies Compagnie de l'Odet SE and Bolloré SE on the basis of the risk that the companies are contributing to serious and systematic human rights abuses; Norges Bank opted for observation. The recommendation relates primarily to working conditions at oil palm plantations in Cameroon and their consequences for local communities. Norges Bank  announced its decision to follow up on the companies through active ownership. Note therefore that these companies have not been excluded from investments by the Fund. Council’s Press Release here: https://etikkradet.no/compagnie-de-lodet-se-and-bollore-se/. Ethics Council Opinion HERE.

This is perhaps the most interesting of the three. It focuses on active ownership and in the process provides a window on the further development of a line of interpreting at least the spirit of UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights Principle 19 in interesting ways beyond what is on display in the Bombardier determination. What makes this interesting rather than mundane is the interaction of two levels of active ownership--one at the company level (the focus of which consumed the Ethics Council), and the other on the responsibilities of active ownership at the investment level (the focus of Norges Bank's decision). It serves as a window on the way in which a multi-layered State organ, like the Norway PFG mediates its in-market regulatory interactions between micro activity (the regulation of target company internal compliance related governance) and macro activity (the responsibility of the regulatory organ to itself leverage its own responsibility through active ownership as a minority owner to attain internal governance reform of companies in its investment universe).

For the Ethics Council, the failures of the target enterprise to effectively exercise leverage down its production chain triggered an exclusion recommendation (they failed to keep their end of the "bargain" and would therefore lose their "investment universe inclusion "privileges"). The conclusions were made especially acute by the context, which appeared to make the Ethics Council suspicious of the bona fides of formal changes in structure and to assume that leverage was not adequately used to enforce compliance down a production chain.

Cie de l'Odet has controlling ownership in Bolloré. In line with previous recommendations, the Council on Ethics takes the view that parent companies are accountable for the actions of those subsidiaries. Furthermore, the Council considers that Bolloré, through its shareholdings, is contributing to the human rights abuses for which Socapalm is directly responsible. Bolloré’s assertion that it has no influence over how the plantations are run and how the human rights policy is implemented, since it is a minority shareholder in Socfin, is of little significance to the Council’s assessment in relation to the ethical guidelines. Nor does the Council attach any weight to Bolloré’s transfer of its voting rights in Socfin to that company’s largest shareholder in connection with its stock exchange delisting. What the Council finds material is that Bolloré has, and always has had, a significant shareholding in Socfin and that Bolloré’s senior executives have served on the boards of Socfin and Socfinaf for more than 30 years. (Ethics Council Recommendation, p. 18).

Indeed, the Ethics Council was clear in its connection of the analysis to its interpretive application of the UNGP Principle 19 Commentary on leverage ("The Council finds no indications that Bolloré is in this case complying with its human rights policy, which is based, inter alia, on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, since it will not use its influence to put an end to the norm violations." Ibid.). Built into tat determination were a set of premises about the nature of leverage and its application within production chains, one grounded in their own triggers for effective control rather than on formal control, either through ownership or contract. Effective control is contextual and dynamic, and tend to favor broader expectations of leverage and its effectiveness. Formal control measures are more straightforward but tend to favor stronger limits on leverage.

For Norges Bank, however, one might read their decision to  opt for observation as a signal that failure at the operational level, in this case at least, triggers a stronger responsibility of the investor to leverage ownership to seek to remedy compliance (in this case governance) deficiencies in ways that serve its policy interests and objectives. Though there is no record available for assessing the reasoning of Norges Bank, one can suggest that the determination--that failures of leverage at the operational level first require exercise of leverage at the finance level. The Commentary to UNGP Principle 6, for example, explains:

States conduct a variety of commercial transactions with business enterprises, not least through their procurement activities. This provides States – individually and collectively – with unique opportunities to promote awareness of and respect for human rights by those enterprises, including through the terms of contracts, with due regard to States’ relevant obligations under national and international law. (UNGP Principle 6 Commentary).

The Commentary to UNGP Principle 4 also suggests the discretionary resort to guidance as opposed to mandatory measures: "Guidance to business enterprises on respecting human rights should
indicate expected outcomes and help share best practices." (UNGP Principle 4 Commentary). And, it might be argued that active shareholding may advance compliance by state organs with UNGP Principle 2 (see my Commentary here). Lastly, one can only wonder, at this point, the extent to which the EU's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive will affect the way that the Ethics Council draws lines respecting leverage and leverage related obligations--as well as the extent to which leverage at the PFG level will require greater attention. 

The Press Releases for the three cases follow below. The reader may be rewarded by considering the three cases as disaggregated aspects of a coordinated whole--moving from an example of successful leverage  (Mativ) to the continued exercise of leverage through active shareholding to produce substantial governance reform (Bombardier), to the tensions between the obligations for active shareholding and leverage at the operational level versus the exercise of leverage at the investment level where there is disagreement in line drawing (and risk assessment) between the Ethics Council and Norges bank. 

Video--Mark Zaid and Rob "Butch" Bracknell on Anomalous Health Incidents (AKA Havana Syndrome): Joint meeting of the International Committee of the ABA Senior Lawyers Division (SLD) and the National Security Committee of the ABA International Law Section (ILS)

 

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The ABA Senior Lawyers Division (SLD) and the National Security Committee of the ABA International Law Section (ILS) recently hosted Mark Zaid and Rob "Butch" Bracknell who spoke about the history of, legal status of, and issues surrounding what has come to be called "Havana Syndrome" but perhaps more accurately known as Anomalous Health Incidents. Great thanks to the remarkable Jonathan Meyer for chairing and organizing the event. Fascinating program for those interested in both the technology aspects, and the legal/political aspects (much of it arguably quite frustrating from a variety of perspectives, though perhaps not unexpectedly so) .

The event was held 26 June 2024. The VIDEO RECORDING of the presentation was just posted and may be accessed here. The TRANSCRIPT may be accessed  with the Video and follows below. 

The ABA  SLD AND ILS describe the event this way:  

Mark Zaid and Rob "Butch" Bracknell address the joint meeting of the International Committee of the ABA Senior Lawyers Division (SLD) and the National Security Committee of the ABA International Law Section (ILS) on Anomalous Health Incidents (sometimes referred to by the media as "Havana Syndrome"). Their comments are premised on the presumption that AHIs are caused by a malign state based capability being deliberately applied against American human targets in various overseas and domestic locations. 

They will discuss the evidence underlying the presumption, the standards for "internationally wrongful acts,” possible treaty violations, and the measures a state may take under international law in response. They will also examine the responsibility of USG to protect US personnel from attacks by foreign actors, and the extent to which USG may have failed to do so, including complicity in obscuring the truth. 

Our speakers will also take a brief look at whether US citizens acting under the scope of federal employment (diplomats, intelligence personnel, military) maintain a private right of action against a foreign sovereign in US courts, and will analogize law by analogy to determine at what point the attacks might rise to a level of "armed attack" sufficient to trigger a state's right to self defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. 

 Speakers: 

Robert “Butch” Bracknell is a retired Marine officer who worked for 9 years as a NATO civilian at Allied Command Transformation before transitioning to private practice and consultancy. He has a JD from Maryland Law, an LLM from Harvard Law, and an MSc from the University of Oxford. He resides in Norfolk, Virginia. 

Mark S. Zaid is a Washington, D.C. national security attorney who has spent three decades handling cases involving classified information, security clearances, war crimes, terrorism and the Freedom of Information Act. He recently appeared as a witness before a Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee on “Silent Weapons: Examining Foreign Anomalous Health Incidents Targeting Americans In The Homeland And Abroad”. He has a JD from Albany Law School and a BA from the University of Rochester.

  Links mentioned in recording: 

A. 60 Minutes episode (full episode):   • Havana Syndrome evidence suggests who...   

B. 60 Minutes episode (transcript): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-s... 

C. Congressional hearing video: https://homeland.house.gov/hearing/si... 

D. Written testimony of the witnesses, including Mark Zaid's: https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content... 

E. This unclassified NSA document given to Mark Zaid in 2014 is, in his view, incredible. Remember, this is pre-Havana:   / 1  

 

The transcript follows below. My own earlier essays may be accessed here: Cuba Sonic Weapons Affair (43)

Now Available:--Special Issue: Subjectivities, Religion, Discrimination: Spaces and Lexical Imaginaries for Ubiquitous Justice; International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique (2024) 37(4)

 

 

I am delighted to announce that the  International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique has published its Vol. 37(4), a special issue edited by Rob Kahn, Simona Stano, and Mario Ricca--Subjectivities, Religion, Discrimination: Spaces and Lexical Imaginaries for Ubiquitous Justice. 

The table of contents (with links) follows below along with the Editorial Introduction (which may also be accessed on the Springer website here), which includes a summary of the contributions to the Special Issue.

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 13: Kazuko Ito, "Challenges for Japan’s Regulatory Approaches for Business and Human Rights"

 

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I am posting and providing brief reflections on the essays that make up the excellent new online symposium organized by the marvelous Caroline Omari Lichuma and Lucas Roorda and appearing on the blog site of the Business and Human Rights Law Journal. Entitled Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe. The essays (and the symposium) means to expand the conversation about human rights from out of its hub in the UN apparatus in Geneva and begin exploring in more depth the sometimes extraordinary developments occurring outside the highest reaches of elite curation in the Global North.

The twelfth of the essays is Kazuko Ito,"Challenges for Japan’s Regulatory Approaches for Business and Human Rights."

Kazuko Ito is the vice president of Human Rights Now, Lecturer at Keio University Law School and an attorney at law in Japan. She is a board member of the International Human Rights Law Association in Japan, Co-Representative of Japan NGO Network for Nuclear Weapon Abolition, and served as chair of the Gender Equality Committee of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations. She is also associated with WWF Japan. She has an LL.B(1989) from Waseda University and Doctor of Law(2023) there. She was a visiting scholar at NYU School of Law(2005). Her research interests concern International Law and Justice, International Human Rights Law, Business and Human Rights, Gender and Law. She has written numerous books and articles on human rights issues, including “Human Rights Beyond the Border”(2013), “Why is Fast Fashion Cheap?” (2016) and a chapter in the book “The Global Me Too Movement: How Social Media Propelled a Historic Movement and How the Law Responded” (2020).

The marvelous contribution of Kazuko Ito follows below and may be accessed as originally posted here. Among the important points raised in their essay the following resonated particularly strongly and may be worth deeper reflection:

1. Ito frames the analysis of the business and human rights situation in Japan around a central premise:

Since their 2011 adoption, the UN Guiding Principles on BHR (UNGPs) have had little impact on corporate behavior in Japan. Japanese business actors have had little awareness or interest in BHR issues both in Japan and in the countries where they operate. Moreover, the Japanese government has not actively promoted human rights in general. ("Challenges for Japan’s Regulatory Approaches for Business and Human Rights").

This situation portends "a fatal" problem unless Japanese firms "address human rights in line with the UNGPs." (Ibid.). It is around that central premise that Ito seeks to embed an analysis  of "government initiatives to facilitate effective UNGPs implementation." (Ibid.). Four are identified: (1) Japan's 2020  National Action Plan (NAP) for UNGP implementation; (2)  the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) 2022 “Guidelines on Respecting Human Rights in Responsible Supply Chains” (METI Guidelines); (3) the 2023 "efforts to ensure companies bidding for public procurement respect human rights" (Ibid.) through a Japanese variation of standardized human rights contact provisions; and (4) Stock exchange rules requiring corporate governance reports, including with respect to respect for human rights and climate change. 

The framework suggests that, at least before 2024, Japan has been inclined to avoid the European model of mandatory measures and the legalization of the 2nd Pillar in favor of policy and guidance measures, but also permitting hardening of UNGP inspired measures by private arrangements in markets It is in that sense that Japan, like the United States and South Korea, occupies a space on the peripheries of  the Geneva centered and European drive "understanding" of the "correct" interpretation and application of the UNGPs. At the same time, it suggests that the character of the periphery among developed states may be different in consequence from the peripheral spaces for States the economies of which tend, on the whole, to be situated beneath the apex control rungs of global production (including China).  For developed States what appears to be the periphery from the perspective of the Geneva establishment may well be represent the center of an alternative and comprehensive interpretive and objectives based application of the UNGP. 

2. Ito then offers an analysis of the reasons for this particular development of the Japanese position. Two are advanced. 

A. The first touches on the influence of institutional investors and global investment cultures. Ito suggests that having mainstreamed ESG (environmental, social, and governance) these institutional investors have  pushed forward disclosure based systems driven through the sensibilities and cultures of ESG reporting in markets.  That impulse is deepened  as solidarity is enhanced between Japanese and foreign institutional investors. Sharing the same investment culture may tend to drive choices about the forms and spaces within which the UNGP's principles are applied.  

B. The second touches on external pressure in the form of "western regulatory initiatives" ("Challenges for Japan’s Regulatory Approaches for Business and Human Rights") and the need to mediate national impulses with broader economic objectives. Ito identifies three waves of these regulatory measures. The first were sourced in the  sector differentiated disclosure regimes of Modern Slavery Acts. The second were sourced in the increasingly muscular sanctions and human rights regimes of the United States.  And the third was the maturing of the mandatory measures cultures for human rights due diligence originating in Europe. Each of these, of course, cut in different directions, at least with respect to the structuring of human rights based compliance. They are united normatively by their focus on the responsibility to respond to negative human rights impacts of economic activity along production chains. And that, effectively, Ito argues is what Japan took from these waves of foreign measures--that a national response to these quite disparate measures would be required  if Japan was to preserve and enhance its macro-economic policy objectives. 

3. Yet these waves of foreign influence now appear to require a choice, and perhaps a realignment that nods in the direction of the European approach.

Japanese firms observing the process have more or less recognized that a move from soft-law to hard-law regulation is inevitable. Some have begun to believe that creating a CSDDD-like regulatory environment in Japan would be appropriate to level the playing field if the CSDDD is enforced for significant numbers of Japanese companies operating in Europe. ("Challenges for Japan’s Regulatory Approaches for Business and Human Rights").

Certainly, that is what the Japan Business Council in Europe (JBCE), representing over 100 large Japanese companies, would prefer, if only to protect its own interests.  But the Japan-U.S. Business Council may have a different perspective.  And Ito notes that "Neither the Japanese government nor major business associations have expressed their willingness to take further steps towards hard law regulation beyond ongoing initiatives." ("Challenges for Japan’s Regulatory Approaches for Business and Human Rights"). Ito notes the reluctance as a function of the sense that Japanese companies are doing well under the current regime, and that the monstrous complexities and ambiguities of the current crop of regulatory measures  make it "difficult to know what actions are required for specific situations, and they resist unpredictable duties and penalties" (Ibid.). At the same time the Japanese also sometimes feel caught between their Chinese and US business partners around sanctions based regimes. There, at least, there is a certain clarity, even if what is clarified is the unpalatable nature of the revealed choice.

Yet Ito also raises the essential element of the Japanese periphery--its susceptibility and reactive stance as against waves of regulatory or other foreign projections into and around Japanese interests.  Japan, in this sense, may have substantially more maneuvering room than a developing state, but it is still exposed to and must react/protect itself against inward projections of foreign (regulatory and market) power, or adjust to them to the extent that their own projections of economic power makes that necessary. On the other hand, compliance with local law does not necessarily drove home state policy, and might well produce the same effective result one finds in China and India--the bifurcation of economic policy around the UNGP, splitting international circulation and policy from its domestic counterparts. 

4. Within that context, Ito makes the case for the regulatory approach that aligns Japan with Europe.  Ito suggests that the arguments against the regulatory approach evade the fundamental problem: that "soft law" (or as might otherwise be put, the privatization of hardened responsibility measures through market and contract relations) ignores reality and cannot work. Only through the assertion of power by State organs can any form of HRDD correctly align with the UNGPs. "In this regard, the establishment of a supervisory authority to investigate and redress violations, as well as the introduction of civil liability, can be key to transforming the situation, both of which can only be realized through hard law." ("Challenges for Japan’s Regulatory Approaches for Business and Human Rights"). For Ito, accountability might well be the key to mandatory measures, one inevitably tied to the assertion of political and administrative rather than market disciplinary power. 

"Challenges for Japan’s Regulatory Approaches for Business and Human Rights"

5. But against these arguments, Ito concedes culture and practice. "Japan’s reluctance towards a mandatory approach is a reflection of its longstanding culture of inaction and indifference to human rights issues at home and abroad." Indeed, in the face of such reluctance, civil society agitation might be requires where civil society can be invested with the mantle of social vanguard moving Japan in the right direction. The issue, then, becomes a matter of politics, and in that arena, civil society elements, representing the collective will of at least a portion of the Japanese demos, may play a crucial role, not just in the arena of political action, but in changing the cultural and social perceptions of the Japanese polity enough to make change possible. That is, Ito suggests that the basic elements of liberal democratic engagement might be necessary to move change. But in the process Ito effectively concedes the fundamentally political nature of the enterprise of business and human rights. Not the textual foundations in the form of the UNGP, to be sure, but certainly around the interpretation and application of that framework. In the process, Ito opens the door to a consideration--at the periphery--of the fundamental framework around which individuals may engage in economic activity around, with and through the state. For the moment, that consideration produces no single answer. Instead it appears to be grounded in the recognition of the importance of the ideologies of specific political-economic models as the basis against which interpretation and application of the UNGP will be judged. The rest, it seems, devolves again into matters of politics among collectives. But it is a politics the normative floor of which is specified in the UNGP. 

 

Links to all Essays in the BHR Blog Symposium here:

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 1--"Setting the Stage"

 Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 2: Bonny Ling--"Taiwan: Business and Human Rights on the Margins of the UN System"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 3: Keren Adams--"A Race to the Top? Progress and pitfalls of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act"

 Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 4: Jernej Letnar Černič--"Business and Human Rights in the Western Balkans"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 5: Barnali Choudhury--"BHR Developments in Canada: Targeting Low Hanging Fruit"

 Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 6: Larry Catá Backer--"The Chinese Path for Business and Human Rights"[白 轲 "工商企业与人权的中国道路"]

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 7: Sang Soo Lee--"BHR Regulations in South Korea: Achievements and Limitations" 

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 8: Rimdolmsom Jonathan Kabré--"Business And Human Rights In Africa in The Era of The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 9: Cristiane Lucena Carneiro and Nathalie Albieri Laureano --"Regulatory Initiatives on Business and Human Rights in Brazil – From the Domestic to the International and Back? "

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 10: Lisa J, Laplante, "The United States 2024 National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 11: Erika George and Enrique Samuel Martinez, "The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: An Assessment Of Enforcement Efforts"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 12: Pradeep Narayanan, Dheeraj, and Jhumki Dutta, "Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 13: Kazuko Ito,"Challenges for Japan’s Regulatory Approaches for Business and Human Right

 

CfP International Journal for the Semiotics of Law Special Issue--"Public Vices, Poor Laws, and the Deterioration of Character"

 

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I am delighted to pass along this Call for Papers" for a special issue of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. Edited by Amalia Amaya Navarro (Edinburgh University) and  Tomasz Widłak (University of Gdańsk), the Special Issue theme is "Public Vices, Poor Laws, and the Deterioration of Character" posits a quite intriguing inversion:

Virtue jurisprudence is interested in exploring the relationship between legislation's aims and promoting good character traits. On the other hand, this Special Issue delves into “vice jurisprudence”, examining how laws crafted with malevolent intent can pollute law and legal language and corrupt public and private morality. We invite scholars to explore the characteristics and impacts of such laws, questioning their validity and the resulting civic vices they may foster. By adopting a virtue-oriented perspective, this issue seeks to illuminate whether malicious legislation contradicts the essence of law and its systemic properties, considering the influence of lawmakers’ character on the legal process. We welcome papers that critically engage with these themes and propose innovative frameworks for understanding and addressing the morality of law through the lens of vice. Join us in this crucial exploration to redefine the boundaries between virtuous and vicious legislation and its implications for legal systems.

Deadlines:
Abstracts of 300 words by 15 February 2025
After selection, final papers (no more than 15,000 words) should be submitted by 31 October 2025

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 12: Pradeep Narayanan, Dheeraj, and Jhumki Dutta, "Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?"

 

 I am posting and providing brief reflections on the essays that make up the excellent new online symposium organized by the marvelous Caroline Omari Lichuma and Lucas Roorda and appearing on the blog site of the Business and Human Rights Law Journal. Entitled Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe. The essays (and the symposium) means to expand the conversation about human rights from out of its hub in the UN apparatus in Geneva and begin exploring in more depth the sometimes extraordinary developments occurring outside the highest reaches of elite curation in the Global North.

The eleventh of the essays is Pradeep Narayanan, Dheeraj, and Jhumki Dutta, "Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?"

Pradeep Narayanan is a practitioner of participatory methods and approaches in research and evaluation. He works around areas of decolonisation, ethics, Participatory Research, ESG, Business and Human Rights, Sustainable Development

The marvelous contribution of Narayanan, Dheeaj and Dutta follows below and may be accessed as originally posted here. Among the important points raised in their essay the following resonated particularly strongly and may be worth deeper reflection:

1. One of the most interesting aspects of the Indian context, though one shared by States on the peripheries of the UNGP, is the dual tracking of the business and human rights enterprise. This parallels the dual tracking of engagements with global trade and production, the effects of which are most acutely felt on the periphery. On the one hand there is a sector of economic activity that is deeply tied to global trade, production, and the sensibilities of conduct and conduct expectations aligned to transnational elite networks who populate this space. That tends to get much of the attention. On the other hand, the local sectors tend to view themselves as existing on the peripheries of global production and are only peripherally concerned with its expectations (except as and to the extent they must deal with the actors in the transnational economy). For States at the peripheries that creates a double periphery: at the national level the State occupies a space on the peripheries of the UNGP; within the State the UNGP conversations stand at the peripheries of national conversations.  

Despite integration into global supply chains of MNCs who wield significant power and influence within government policy circles, local businesses – except a few, used to ignore the concept of responsible business practices as a Western imposition irrelevant to the Global South context. In this journey, the Government of India deserves praise for launching the National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business (NVGs) – an “Indian Narrative” on business and human rights in 2011 that predated the UN Guiding Principles (UNGP) by a few months. ("Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?").

One saw variations in similar effects on the ground in, for example,  Brazil, South Korea, and the Balkans. From the perspective of the business and human rights enterprise, then, the State is a disaggregated vessel for the insertion of international expectations at the top, and locally contextualized approaches at the bottom, with further divisions  affecting the intensity of engagement and penetration by sector and the sources of production chain control centers. The challenges to sovereign control are substantial but already heralded by the elaboration of polycentric governance within the territories of States occupying a subaltern space in global production (my discussion here in the context of the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh). 

2. Equally interesting is the discussion of the longer term and accumulating effects of mandatory reporting measures by the largest entities in India with the greatest connection to international production from a more privileged space. "Out of 1103 companies who reported during the financial year 2022-23, 68% serve markets outside India while 31% have plants or offices outside India. Preliminary analysis depicts that around 55 of these companies have promoter groups outside India."  ("Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?"). Narayanan, Dheeraj, and Dutta note the dialectical quality of that improvement--annual iterations found improvements both in the quality of disclosure and in the quality of the disclosure template, the Business Responsibility & Sustainability Reporting Format.  "In a way, a BRSR is actually a detailed HRDD report based on the company operations of that year. The National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC) acts as the foundation of the BRSR reporting template and together they give every business clear expectations and also ways of conducting themselves responsibly."  ("Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?"). Their conclusion is positive though incremental:

Our analysis of these reports (Making Growth Inclusive – Analysing Inclusive Policies, Disclosures and Mechanisms of Top 100 Companies , 2015 -2018) indicate the following: (a) all companies do report mandatorily, and some companies continue reporting even after they fall from the top 100 radar, (b) the quality of reporting in the first year was poor, but improved in the first three years, and post that, they became routinised and (c) there has been improved uptake in terms of creating policies on various components of human rights and environment, but there is still a lag in disclosures on actual practices and outcomes. (Ibid.).

3.  The disclosure and reporting, however, also evidence the way that vectors of power and interest affect the scope and depth of disclosure. Narayanan, Dheeraj, and Dutta see "a notable gap between the interests of businesses and shareholders compared to those of communities and workers, further emphasized by a lack of policy commitments and transparency in the public domain. This gap underscores the necessity for constructive engagement, akin to citizens’ engagement with the government in the past." ("Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?"). Yet the touchstone is still a need to align connected enterprises with the expectation of global markets as a function of the space along production chains the reporting forms occupy. 

4. It is here that the space between domestic and internationalized human rights expectations plays a key role. Effectively, internationalized Indian reporting companies can "offshore" human rights compliance domestically by strategically outsourcing human rights sensitive portions of production down national supply chains to enterprises operating out of a different set of rule/compliance expectations. All of this without leaving India. "Additionally, companies outsourcing core activities could be shifting responsibility for human rights violations further down the supply chain, where they may be less visible and harder to address. This trade-off is something that will likely haunt Indian businesses in the coming years." ("Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?").  The result is an incentive among key Indian enterprises (and domesticated offshore companies) to support a dual circulation economy in India, one outward facing and compliant with international standards (eg EU compliance structures and US sanctions regimes) and the other inward facing and protected against the inward projection of international expectations. The insulation of local business from international currents both preserves sovereign control of human rights discussions (and in some senses a protection against erosion of sovereign and democratic discussion and action) and may serve as an important strategic instrument for Indian participation in the larger international issues (climate change and the local context of international human rights principles.

5. Nonetheless, all of this might merely be  the warm up to a most interesting set of insights; Narayanan, Dheeraj, and Dutta note that the focus on the remarkable evolution of the business and human rights landscape in India might well mask what they term "missing debates." 

First, current templates do not capture local linkages with global macro factors and that may consequently skew the "picture" painted in reporting.  Moreover the due diligence project may "probably end up being co-opted by the “auditing” industry. Auditing or reporting in itself may not serve the purpose unless Global North based buyers also become more transparent and enhance capacity along the supply chain and realign their purchasing practices." ("Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?").

Second, Indian reporting regimes might be used to augment and direct policy based objectives by leveraging mandatory reporting responsibility measures elsewhere, for example those adopted in Nigeria and Switzerland, the object of which is to net zero carbon emissions. What is missing is the use of the template to jump start a just transitions discussion.

Third, business and human rights remains an elite sport in India, as it does in many other places downstream from apex production chain States. The current state of business and human rights measures failed to democratize and broaden the discussion and buy in from the mass of people who are both rights bearers and rights controller. The question, then, is whether and in what ways the Indian national BHR landscape ought to be subsumed within  the larger international discussion.  But might it also be worth discussing embedding in reverse? That is, it might be worth considering whether the internationalist business and human rights discussion, principles, application, and the like, ought to be considered with Indian characteristics--that is to bring the discussion down to the local rather than to require the local to internationalize in ways that could de-nature rights form context.   

Fourth, it follows that internationalization discussions assume away the value of the local. That is based, in turn, on assumptions that the international normative frameworks "are apolitical and equally advantageous or disadvantageous for all countries and their economies. Basically, it is assumed that these instruments would contribute towards creating a win-win situation for all. However, there is cause for concern. "("Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?"). High on the list of off topic topics are the capitalist system; though ironically that remains very much on topic within elite academic and administrative circles in the Global North. 

Fifth, if one is forced to focus on the local, then one might not like what one is forced to confront.

Privileges enjoyed by mainstream social identities are obscenely visible among board, senior and middle management, among permanent employees, and even among vendors and partnerships. If reporting templates had the gaze of an informal, unorganized, migrant, Dalit, differently-abled, transgender worker, the BRSR would get the real Global South gaze. (Ibid.).

And that is the real challenge for the periphery--not so much the mechanics of escaping the position on the wrong side of global clientism, but the responsibility to look critically at one is left with through the lens of human rights. That, however, is a task that no State or social collective has yet managed to master and be able at the same time to have undertaken that task in a wholly human rights positive way. It may thus not be the gaze of the Global North that matters but the willingness of the Global South to gaze at its own image.

Links to all Essays in the BHR Blog Symposium here:

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 1--"Setting the Stage"

 Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 2: Bonny Ling--"Taiwan: Business and Human Rights on the Margins of the UN System"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 3: Keren Adams--"A Race to the Top? Progress and pitfalls of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act"

 Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 4: Jernej Letnar Černič--"Business and Human Rights in the Western Balkans"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 5: Barnali Choudhury--"BHR Developments in Canada: Targeting Low Hanging Fruit"

 Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 6: Larry Catá Backer--"The Chinese Path for Business and Human Rights"[白 轲 "工商企业与人权的中国道路"]

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 7: Sang Soo Lee--"BHR Regulations in South Korea: Achievements and Limitations" 

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 8: Rimdolmsom Jonathan Kabré--"Business And Human Rights In Africa in The Era of The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 9: Cristiane Lucena Carneiro and Nathalie Albieri Laureano --"Regulatory Initiatives on Business and Human Rights in Brazil – From the Domestic to the International and Back? "

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 10: Lisa J, Laplante, "The United States 2024 National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 11: Erika George and Enrique Samuel Martinez, "The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: An Assessment Of Enforcement Efforts"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 12: Pradeep Narayanan, Dheeraj, and Jhumki Dutta, "Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 13: Kazuko Ito,"Challenges for Japan’s Regulatory Approaches for Business and Human Right

 

Coalition for Peace & Ethics: Input Statement for OHCHR UNGP Helpdesk Initiative

 

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights through its Business and Human Rights Section has initiated a major initiative--the establishment of a helpdesk mechanism on business and human rights. As part of that effort OHCHR is hosting an event 26 June 20204 in Geneva,  Establishing Effective Helpdesks on Business and Human Rights taking place on Wednesday, 26 June 2024 @ 14-15h in Geneva, Palais des Nations, Room XXII.The event will be held in hybrid format. If you cannot join in person, please feel free to connect via WebEx (Meeting number: 2743 583 3394; Password: PJsPnUBt472). Please note that during the Q&A portion of the event, priority will be given to participants in Room XXII.

The OHCHR is also accepting input related to the Helpdesk project even at this formative stage in its development.

On behalf of the Coalition for Peace & Ethics, I have submitted input for consideration in the development of this Helpdesk Initiative.  The Input, which consists of an analysis of the Helpdesk framework and a set of suggestions and recommendations for the concept's further development, follows below. From its conclusions:

The topic, and the effort, is important. The choices made in structuring this mechanism perhaps more so. This CPE analysis and input, including its suggestions and recommendations go toward the key elements of  that structuring—the delicate balancing between authority and (in)formality in structures and the even more delicate balance between interpretation and instrumentalization. The fundamental question that requires some discussion is this: will the OHCHR operating perhaps through this Helpdesks mechanism seek to develop a premise that it is the supreme authority or a significant and uniquely situated but not the only authority on the UNGP, its interpretation, and the manager of the premises through which judgments about application must be measured. CPE does not suggest that either position is fatally flawed, only that either requires a measure of transparency, consultation, and perhaps the legitimizing offices of law  unless the assertions and operations under any such mechanism is to remain informal.  The German model certainly points in that direction. The price one pays for informal narrative management, of course, is the effective and mandatory authority of interpretation and pronouncements, the legal effects of which may vary by State. The effort to move this to a virtual space, through the concept of platforms, is a good one though, as the CPE input suggests, one that in this formative stage of its development, presents critical challenges—and choices among objectives (policy, political, structural and the like). Lastly, it remains to be seen whether or to what extent the helpdesk mechanism can overcome the large challenge of effective access.  Aimed only at elite stakeholders the helpdesk mechanism will merely lard an already rich system of access. Aimed to those otherwise unable to access current may require some substantially creative thinking—with respect to which both virtual spaces and the conceptual framework of platforms can play a key role. Tied to that is the final normative element that ought to play a role in structuring—the role of data and data mining in the construction of the helpdesk system. The helpdesk system will generate a tremendous amount of data; much of it will be useful both for system quality control, but also to feed descriptive and predictive models. In a more advanced stage, that data can also serve as a baseline against which behavior changing policy measures may be adopted, adapted, and applied to the community of stakeholders.  None of this is necessarily bad, but all of it ought to be considered against emerging legal and normative standards about data and its uses to manage perception and conduct.  

The text of the CPE Helpdesk Input may also be accessed HERE. 

 

Pix Credit here

 

CfP: Semiotica Journal--"Silenced Faces and Voices and Invisible Bodies – A Semiotics Investigation"

 

 

I am delighted to share a Call for Papers for a special Issue of Semiotica edited by the extraordinary Anne Wagner (Lille). Its theme is "Silenced Faces and Voices and Invisible Bodies – A Semiotics Investigation."

Overview
This Special Issue is dedicated to exploring themes of marginalization, invisibility, and
exclusion within diverse legal, political, cultural, and social frameworks. The aim is to unpack
the semiotics of silence and invisibility, assessing their manifestations and impacts on various
communities and individuals.

The CfP follows below. 

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 11: Erika George and Enrique Samuel Martinez, "The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: An Assessment Of Enforcement Efforts"

 I am posting and providing brief reflections on the essays that make up the excellent new online symposium organized by the marvelous Caroline Omari Lichuma and Lucas Roorda and appearing on the blog site of the Business and Human Rights Law Journal. Entitled Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe. The essays (and the symposium) means to expand the conversation about human rights from out of its hub in the UN apparatus in Geneva and begin exploring in more depth the sometimes extraordinary developments occurring outside the highest reaches of elite curation in the Global North.

The tenth of the essays is Erika George and Enrique Samuel Martinez's, "The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: An Assessment Of Enforcement Efforts"

Erika R. George is the Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law where she teaches constitutional law, international human rights law, international environmental law, and seminars on corporate citizenship and sustainability.

Enrique Martinez is a 3L J.D. Candidate at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. He is an Executive Footnote Editor for the Utah Law Review and a Quinney Research Fellow.

The marvelous contribution of Erika George and Enrique Martinez follows below and may be accessed as originally posted here. Among the important points raised in their essay the following resonated particularly strongly and may be worth deeper reflection:

1. While in some ways the United States stands at the peripheries of the BHR enterprise (nicely discussed in the Symposium here), especially where a significant part of global norm drivers have committed to mandatory measures built around expectations of business conduct in their economic activities.These effectively seek to implement the UNGP's 1st Pillar State duty through projects of legalizing the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, converting them into compliance measures overseen by a (eventually) well trained administrative apparatus (eg here).  However, there is one area in which it remains a global driver--in the deployment of State authority (UNGP Principle 3) more directly. In this case that is undertaken through the use of the use of sanctions as a means of enforcing international rights and expectations, including but not limited to human rights in the economic domain (discussed eg here, here, here, here).  Other States have developed their own versions (e.g. here and here), though for some, substantial human rights questions remain, especially of targeted sanctions regimes (eg discussed  here, and here) in addition to questions of effectiveness (eg from the libertarian perspective here). Sanctions regimes have also produced anti-sanction legislation, for example in China (eg here ¶2.1). Sanctions regimes tend to be highly targeted, even in the human rights context--against specified individuals, entities, and places. They are sometimes deployed only with respect to breaches of certain rights. On the other hand, they can have an indirect effect on the practice of human rights due diligence by delegating to enterprises the duty to conform to sanctions regimes within their production chains. At the same time they may be both imposed and limited to reflect national policy objectives, effectively instrumentalizing international law and expectations int he service of national interest--but then that has been the form of other human rights efforts that interlink the public and private spheres (see discussion here and here in the context of Sovereign Wealth Funds). 

2. It is in this context that one might better appreciate the excellent analysis of one of the current "signature" sanctions regimes  marvelously analyzed by Erika George and Enrique Martinez.  They outline the basic requirements of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2021 (UFLPA), assessing enforcement and compliance efforts of this effort. One of the critical elements of the analysis reminds us of the importance of nexus issues.  In this case UFLPA occupies a space at the center of several critical trajectories.  One of them is the human rights and sustainability positive efforts at "just transitions" to non-carbon based transport. Another is the collision of human rights impacts assessments where there may be substantial disagreement about the measuring stick--this is especially acute with respect to Chinese policy in Xinjiang, and intensified because of the passions invested in the principles and judgments from all stakeholder sides.  And the third is the effects of national interests in the calculation of human rights impacts as well as the choices of sanctions focus. In the latter case, it is interesting, for example, that though the allegations range across a broad set of human rights impacts, UFLPA focuses on forced labor. 

3. George and Martinez analysis of the regulatory requirements suggest both the power and the powerful inefficiencies of administrative oversight of economic activity (and thus provides a glimpse of the much large though similar issues in more comprehensive mandatory measures such as those emerging in Europe). Compliance under UFLPA is built around the creation of a rebuttable presumption that goods from Xinjiang are produced with forced labor.  Compliance, then, involves one of two choices--(1) procure goods or services elsewhere (and ensure there are no connections to Xinjiang); or (2) rebut the presumption. Without irony, UFLPA provides that one way to rebut the presumption is to show that the goods etc. have no connection to Xinjiang. The other is to conduct due diligence on products that have a connection to Xinjiang, including inquiries from the relevant administrative agency to show that the goods were not produced with forced labor.

Overall, the government’s enforcement strategy counsels that to comply businesses should engage in heightened due diligence in order to identify potential supply chain exposure to companies operating in XUAR and connected to abuse of Uyghur and other Muslim minority laborers.

 Another irony, this one not lost on George and Martinez, of the apparently intimate connection between the administration of sanctions regimes and its operationalization through systems of mandatory due diligence. They note that 

"the UFLPA is well positioned to incentivize the creation of more robust due diligence tools to detect human rights violations in global supply chains. The UFLPA could be developed to serve as models but unfortunately no transparency into inner workings of the XUAR region make conducting due diligence difficult.(ibid.).

And yet, that is precisely why the U.S. might have focused on sanctions regimes, rather than on regimes of mandatory human rights due diligence measures--to limit the use of mandatory measures to those specific and functionally differentiated activities with respect to which the State may have a special interest.  With respect to the rest, guidance, incentives and policy measures would serve as the default rule (see Symposium essay HERE on the US NAP). 

4. This US approach suggests another variation in human rights and business hybridity, the guidance of but markets driven 2nd Pillar with limited direct intervention by the State in matters of special national interest.At the time of the introduction of the legislation that became UFLA I noted what appeared to be the adoption in the US of what I called a two thrust policy, one that leveraged the public and private pillars of the UNGP:

CECC engaged in a two track approach to projecting power and asserting pressure against Chinese policy and policy implementation in Xinjiang. It has done this by announcing a two thrust campaign. The first seeks to affect the societal sphere by putting pressure on market actors to evidence fidelity to national (and perhaps international) human rights values in accordance with a specific application, in their market transactions. * * * Simultaneously CECC's leaders have introduced legislation, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) HR 1155 (117th Cong. 1st Sess. 2021), which does two things. First it serves to develop an authoritative narrative embedded in law (through the preamble and its findings).* * *Second, it serves to enhance a legal framework for decoupling trade that is connected to "all goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China" (The US Two-Thrust Campaign Against Chinese Policy in Xinjiang: The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Coordinates Use of Markets (NBA Endorsements) and Statutes (Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act))

One sees variation of this approach in Brazil, Taiwan, and South Korea, for example. If the European approach with mandatory measures represents the center, then the periphery becomes all the more interesting precisely because its approaches are so variegated. Beyond the core distinction between regimes grounded in mandatory versus guidance measures,  other differences emerge, One focuses on the nature of mandatory measures. In this case between mandatory measures that are compliance centered (eg, the European CSCDDD) or sanctions centered (eg UFLPA). But sanctions-related mandatory measures may have compliance based consequences--a connection that George and Martinez astutely analyze in the UFLPA. Another focuses on comprehensive versus targeted measures. Again against the comprehensive reach of European measures, one encounters targeted approaches of periphery states. But the reasons and the scope of that targeting are contextually driven--quite different, for example, among the state approaches considered in this BHR Symposium. Lastly, guidance and policy themselves can vary greatly in size, scope, and direction. In the background, of course, the role of capacity and capacity building ought not to be underestimated as substance and as a disciplinary device--that appears to be a lesson in the context of the Balkans (here). 

5. Lastly, the role of civil society is nicely underscored in the analysis.  That is particularly important when one considers the varying roles and effects of civil society participation in the BHR debates (and consequent policy) in the States considered in the Symposium.  For me, contrasting the role of civil society in the Brazilian context, and in that of the US, was particularly instructive. George and Martinez explain how in the US context, " individual states, NGOs, and business groups have stepped up to push for greater accountability. The Coalition to End Uyghur Forced Labor has gathered civil society organizations (CSOs) and trade unions to put pressure on businesses, governments, and most importantly China to end forced labor." (Ibid.). At the same time civil society has also refined its focus on advocacy directly to the private sector. Capacity, and capacity building, then, may be as important for civil society as it may be for States and business.

6. But each of these is essentially context dependent especially where the localization of international expectations becomes the touchstone for compliance. That may require advocacy in two keys--on the one hand civil society may wish to advocate for convergence under a single regime; at the same time it may have to develop modalities of advocacy that maximize human rights positive behaviors in national context. Building bridges between the two, of course, becomes the challenge but also a substantially important role for both business and civil society. The UFLPA, then, reinforces the insight that peripheries may play a vital role in the discourse and development of BHR under the broad framework of the UNGPs, and that coordination, rather than coherence--BHR pluralism under a core set of values-objectives rather than a presumption of a singular path to BHR objectives--may better serve the BHR project as it has been developing to date.

Links to all Essays in the BHR Blog Symposium here:

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 1--"Setting the Stage"

 Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 2: Bonny Ling--"Taiwan: Business and Human Rights on the Margins of the UN System"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 3: Keren Adams--"A Race to the Top? Progress and pitfalls of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act"

 Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 4: Jernej Letnar Černič--"Business and Human Rights in the Western Balkans"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 5: Barnali Choudhury--"BHR Developments in Canada: Targeting Low Hanging Fruit"

 Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 6: Larry Catá Backer--"The Chinese Path for Business and Human Rights"[白 轲 "工商企业与人权的中国道路"]

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 7: Sang Soo Lee--"BHR Regulations in South Korea: Achievements and Limitations" 

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 8: Rimdolmsom Jonathan Kabré--"Business And Human Rights In Africa in The Era of The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 9: Cristiane Lucena Carneiro and Nathalie Albieri Laureano --"Regulatory Initiatives on Business and Human Rights in Brazil – From the Domestic to the International and Back? "

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 10: Lisa J, Laplante, "The United States 2024 National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 11: Erika George and Enrique Samuel Martinez, "The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: An Assessment Of Enforcement Efforts"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 12: Pradeep Narayanan, Dheeraj, and Jhumki Dutta, "Business Responsibility Reporting in India – Can it go Beyond the Global North Gaze?"

Symposium on Business and Human Rights (BHR) Regulatory Initiatives Outside Europe: Part 13: Kazuko Ito,"Challenges for Japan’s Regulatory Approaches for Business and Human Right