Table of Contents - Issue 1

Table of Contents - Issue

Employment Arbitration at the Crossroads: An Assessment and Call for Action

Arbitration agreements must be on equal footing with all types of contracts. This stark reality demands that the various stakeholders in the arbitration community converge in the interest of designing and institutionalizing arbitration mechanics and processes that, as a start, exceed the minimum requirements to avoid arguments of substantive unconscionability and, more broadly, provide the fair, just, and accountable alternative dispute resolution system the FAA and the U.S. Supreme Court have indicated it can be. This paper seeks to guide this next stage of the debate by first reviewing the doctrinal developments over the past thirty years that led to a settled state of arbitration law. We then exhort the various stakeholders to collectively take up the challenge of this next stage. In particular, we hope to prompt that cooperation by laying out the essential elements of a fair and just employment arbitration mechanism

Peran Kolaboratif Organisasi Masyarakat Sipil Mengintegrasikan Nilai-Nilai Hak Asasi Manusia dalam Tata Kelola Bisnis Perkebunan Sawit di Sumatera Utara

Studi ini bertujuan untuk mengeksplorasi upaya kolaboratif Organisasi Masyarakat Sipil (OMS) untuk mendorong akuntabilitas korporasi dalam kepatuhan dan implementasi United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), khususnya di sektor bisnis perkebunan kelapa sawit di Sumatera Utara. Integrasi nilai-nilai HAM ke dalam tata kelola bisnis merupakan mandat penting UNGP. Selain itu, masing-masing aktor utama dalam UNGP memiliki basis tata kelola sistematis untuk menjalankan kekuasaan dan pengaruhnya dan dikenal sebagai sistem tata kelola polisentris. Di sinilah pentingnya upaya membangun strategi kolaborasi yang efektif untuk saling menguatkan taraf implementasi UNGP. Penelitian ini menggunakan analisis metode kualitatif dengan desain kajian eksploratif dan koleksi data berdasarkan wawancara dan ragam data sekunder yang berkaitan dengan UNGP, termasuk komentar dan penafsirannya. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa program-program PKPA mampu mendorong peningkatan kapasitas pemangku kebijakan dalam pelibatan multipihak menginkorporasi UNGP ke dalam aktivitas bisnis. Penelitian ini merekomendasikan program-program Pusat Kajian dan Perlindungan Anak (PKPA), yakni RESBOUND dapat dikembangkan melalui penciptaan model-model partisipatif baru untuk mendukung penguatan implementasi UNGP, terutama penguatan mekanisme uji tuntas HAM dan akses pemulihan yang efektif atas dampak pelanggaran HAM dalam relasi aktivitas bisnis

Access to Medicines and Pharmaceutical Patents:Corporate Responsibility to Respect in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is the final work of the meticulous mandate upheld by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General between 2005 and 2011. It consists of three pillars, namely, the state duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and access by victims to effective remedy. The focus of this thesis is on the second pillar, specifically the corporate responsibility of patent-holding pharmaceutical companies to respect the right to health in access to medicines context. The research question that this thesis seeks to answer is what meaning the corporate responsibility to respect human rights as framed by the U.N. Guiding Principles signifies for patent-holding pharmaceutical companies in the access to medicines context, more specifically, whether it is comprehensive enough to meet the right to health requirements or not. The thesis initially establishes that the term ‘respect’ is meant to correlate with its meaning in human right law, which refers to non-infringement or ‘doing no harm’. Subsequently, the thesis avails itself of the right to health framework as a reference point to indicate the adverse human rights impacts of patent-holding pharmaceutical companies. As a response to these adverse impacts, specific corporate actions that should be taken are suggested, which often require initiative from companies such as price reductions in life-saving medicines through participation in multi-stakeholder initiatives or engaging in voluntary licensing agreements. Justifications to support the aforementioned actions are also provided to make clear that the scope of corporate responsibility to respect in fact allows for broader interpretation of 'respect' in certain circumstances