Human rights and global business

This unit seeks to equip you with the knowledge and skills necessary to understand how business activities and relationships impact upon human rights, and to recognise and engage in an informed and socially responsible manner with human rights issues when working in a business environment.

Businesses dealing in today's global marketplace are expected to understand how their operations and commercial relationships may impact negatively on human rights. They are also expected to account for how they are responding to these risks. But what does this mean in practice? What are human rights and why are they relevant to business? What is the scope of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights? How does a business identify and manage its human rights risks and exposures? This course examines the challenges that face transnational businesses with respect to human rights, and public and private regulatory responses. It explores a diverse range of issues such as labour rights in manufacturing and food supply chains; freedom of expression, privacy and information and communication technology companies; community rights and extractive companies, and the human rights risks for lending in the financial sector.

The unit begins by introducing you to key concepts, debates and actors in the evolving field of business and human rights. It then examines the diverse regulatory mechanisms and initiatives that seek to promote corporate responsibility for adverse impacts on human rights, including national and international law, intergovernmental initiatives, multi-stakeholder initiatives and self-regulation. The unit investigates the nature and limitations of these various approaches through the use of case studies, drawn from a range of different industries and geographical localities. It also seeks to develop your awareness of some of the practical challenges that business practitioners face when seeking to implement a human rights agenda within an organisational environment. While global in its scope, this unit places a particular emphasis on business and human rights in the Asia-Pacific region.