Business, Human Rights, & the Triple Planetary Crisis: Confronting Overconsumption

According to the United Nations, the world is facing a triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature (biodiversity) loss, and pollution and waste, with the most egregious consequences felt by those least responsible. These crises are also intertwined: nature-based solutions are promoted as climate change solutions even as heat domes fuel forest fires; extraction of minerals for green energy solutions negatively impacts biodiversity and creates pollution and waste; and carbon major companies are also among the largest producers of plastic pollution. International human rights law is increasingly grappling with environmental rights and responsibilities, as evidenced by the work of special rapporteurs on the environment and on toxic substances, among others. This paper will consider how business and human rights instruments could help to guide solutions to triple planetary crisis that are attentive to the need to reduce overconsumption by the rich while supporting equity and resilience of those most vulnerable to planetary crisis

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

This contribution to the work of the International Law Association’s Study Group on Business and Human Rights considers the relationship between business responsibilities for human rights and climate change. While it is now widely accepted that the adverse effects of climate change undermine the enjoyment of human rights, and that businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, the relationship between business responsibilities for human rights and climate change is unclear. This paper first considers state duties to protect human rights from climate change harms, including harms arising from business activities, and second, considers how the business responsibility to respect rights might apply to climate harms experienced by the most vulnerable. In conclusion, the paper considers whether human rights violations arising from climate change may be considered salient risks that demand a response that aligns with the 2011 UN Guiding Principles

Climate Change and the Human Rights Responsibilities of Business Enterprises

The causes of climate change and solutions to it are inherently tied to non-state actors, including businesses. As multinational business enterprises are at the heart of global emissions, historical and current, it is vital to understand how the attribution of climate change impacts goes beyond the responsibilities of states. The first lawsuits targeting companies have begun. Meanwhile, businesses are increasingly focused on sustainability at different levels of their organizations, including by endorsement of business responsibilities for human rights. What independent responsibilities do business enterprises have when they undertake to respect the human rights of those who are vulnerable to climate harms

Lessons for the Treaty Process from the International Law Commission and International Environmental Law

The chapter examines Amnesty case studies in order to document the state practice identified and the gaps that need to be filled. The chapter will then consider the work of the ILC in its progressive codification of the law on prevention and loss allocation with respect to transboundary harm arising from hazardous activities, culminating in draft Articles8 and draft Principles,9 respectively, in 2001 and 2006. The modest claim of this chapter is that as the key United Nations body responsible for the progressive development and codification of international law, the work of the ILC should surely be of relevance to the treaty debate. Bringing together the Amnesty case studies with the work of the ILC, the chapter will consider whether in fact there are lessons for the treaty debate to be learned from this body of work

Book Review: The Governance Gap: Extractive Industries, Human Rights, And The Home State Advantage, by Penelope Simons & Audrey Macklin

Book review of The Governance Gap: Extractive Industries, Human Rights, And The Home State Advantage, by Penelope Simons & Audrey Macklin

Conceptualizing the Home State Duty to Protect Human Rights

The state duty to protect human rights from abuses by non-state actors including business is one of the three differentiated but complementary pillars that make up the UN Protect, Respect, Remedy Framework for Business and Human Rights. Yet the jurisdictional scope of the duty to protect is disputed. This chapter explores both the permissibility of home state regulation under jurisdictional principles of public international law and the existence of home state obligations to regulate and adjudicate transnational corporations to prevent and remedy human rights violations. Properly understood, the state duty to protect applies to all executive, legislative and judicial organs of government that are involved in creating and supporting the global economic order and thus the conduct of transnational corporations. The chapter concludes by briefly evaluating whether mandating compliance with the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment could serve to fulfill the state duty to protect

Unilateral Home State Regulation: Imperialism or Tool for Subaltern Resistance?

Home state reluctance to regulate international corporate activities in the human rights context is sometimes characterized as an imperialistic infringement of host state sovereignty. This concern may be explicit, or it may be implicit in an expressed desire to avoid conflict with the sovereignty of foreign states. Yet, in the absence of a multilateral treaty directly addressing business and human rights, a regulatory role for home states in preventing and remedying human rights harms is increasingly being suggested. This paper seeks to explore theoretical perspectives that support unilateral home state regulation. Having established that unilateral home state regulation could serve as a catalyst for international norm creation, the paper will explore whether--despite its potential benefits--such regulation is inevitably imperialistic. In order to answer this question, this paper will draw upon the work of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) scholars to critique the customary international law process

A relational analysis of enterprise obligations and carbon majors for climate justice

A coherent theory of climate justice must answer the question of “who owes what to whom, and why?” In this paper I consider this question with a focus on the contribution of business enterprises, in particular the ‘carbon majors’, to climate injustice. I will first introduce a relational approach to legal analysis, drawing upon the work of feminist and vulnerability theorists, Indigenous feminist theorists, and feminist corporate and international law theorists. This relational approach confronts the dominant yet unacknowledged prevalence of the bounded autonomous individual of liberal thought in diverse areas of law and policy, and offers a method not only for critique, but also for reinterpretation and transformation of law in the Anthropocene. I then examine the 2018 Principles on Climate Obligations of Enterprises, drafted by a sub-group of the legal experts responsible for drafting the 2015 Oslo Principles on Global Obligations to Reduce Climate Change. Here, I consider how the Enterprises Principles both reflect and depart from a relational approach to legal analysis, and the implications of this for conceptualizing the human rights responsibilities of carbon majors for climate justice. In conclusion, I argue that a coherent theory of ‘who owes what to whom and why’ in the Anthropocene is dependent upon relational insights which enable us to tell old stories in new ways, and so reveal the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings, while accounting for power and difference

Lessons for the Treaty Process from the International Law Commission and International Environmental Law

The chapter examines Amnesty case studies in order to document the state practice identified and the gaps that need to be filled. The chapter will then consider the work of the ILC in its progressive codification of the law on prevention and loss allocation with respect to transboundary harm arising from hazardous activities, culminating in draft Articles8 and draft Principles,9 respectively, in 2001 and 2006. The modest claim of this chapter is that as the key United Nations body responsible for the progressive development and codification of international law, the work of the ILC should surely be of relevance to the treaty debate. Bringing together the Amnesty case studies with the work of the ILC, the chapter will consider whether in fact there are lessons for the treaty debate to be learned from this body of work

Loss & Damage from Climate Change: A Maturing Concept in Climate Law?

In this article we examine legal perspectives on recovery for harm caused by climate related loss and damage. We start by discussing the meaning of loss and damage, and its relationship to climate mitigation and adaptation. We then consider, at a conceptual level, how those harmed by loss and damage from human induced climate change may pursue remedies against those who have contributed to the harm suffered