Alan S. Gutterman

Older Persons' Rights Project

Subgroups of older persons benefit from the protection included in human rights instruments that have been created to address the rights of vulnerable groups of which an older person is a member; however, it has been argued by the proponents of a new international human rights instrument devoted to the human rights of older persons that it is neces...

Human rights have been described as those activities, conditions, and freedoms that all human beings are entitled to enjoy, by virtue of their humanity and regardless of their status. Human rights are ideally thought of as being inherent, inalienable (i.e., they cannot simply be waived when they are violated by another agent, such as a state or a b...

The right to health has been provided for and/or recognized in most of the core international human rights treaties as well as other international and regional instruments and declarations, and is closely related to and dependent upon the realization of other human rights such as the rights to food, housing, work, education, human dignity, life, no...

The right to health has been provided for and/or recognized in most of the core international human rights treaties as well as other international and regional instruments and declarations. While the right to health is recognized as an independent and fundamental right, it is closely related to and dependent upon the realization of other human righ...

The 1946 Constitution of the World Health Organization (“WHO”) was the first international instrument to enshrine the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right of every human being without distinction because of race, religion, political beliefs, economic or social condition. In the Preamble to its Constitution,...

The right to health has been provided for and/or recognized in most of the core international human rights treaties as well as other international and regional instruments and declarations and is closely related to and dependent upon the realization of other human rights such as the rights to food, housing, work, education, human dignity, life, non...

Climate change, simply described as “any change in average weather that lasts for a long period of time”, already affects many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe, and there is evidence that observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones and their attribution to human i...

Despite arguments, and some polling evidence, to the contrary, older adults are just as concerned as younger people about climate change; however, uncertainty remains about the optimal strategies for leveraging the resources that older people can bring to the debate surrounding climate change. One big problem is misconceptions about the physical an...

The first world conference on the environment took place in 1972 in Stockholm where the participants adopted the Stockholm Declaration and Action Plan for the Human Environment recognizing a fundamental right to “freedom, equality, and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being” and a s...

Climate change, simply described as “any change in average weather that lasts for a long period of time”, has been called out for specific attention in commentaries on risks to health and human rights during emergency situations. Climate change, and the attendant climate-related events including heat waves and hurricanes, put everyone at risk and t...

It has been suggested that our experiences of the social world are shaped by our ethnicity, race, social class, gender identity, sexual orientation, and numerous other facets of social stratification and that these various aspects of social inequality do not operate independently of each other but instead interact to create interrelated systems of...

Combatting the adverse impacts of climate change will require significant changes to greenhouse gas emissions, total energy use, the pace of adoption of alternative renewable energy solutions and policies related to mitigation of climate risks and responses to climate-related emergencies. In addition, core economic sectors such as finance, insuranc...

Older generations have been criticized as being obstacles to change and for not being as active around climate action as younger people, and there is polling that suggests that there is an age gap between younger and older Americans with respect to concerns relating to climate warming. However, others have responded that while there are meaningful...

Climate change, simply described as "any change in average weather that lasts for a long period of time", already affects many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe, and there is evidence that observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones and their attribution to human i...

Everyone has a right to social protection including access to social security and a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of themselves and their families. Among the issues that fall within the umbrella of this chapter are the rights of older persons to an adequate standard of living including food, housing and investment in age...

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food has defined the right to food as “the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and...

For businesses to effectively develop a framework for the relationship between their day-to-day operational activities and human rights, it is helpful and necessary to step back and consider the impacts of those activities on fundamental human rights. More and more businesses, sensitive to the criticisms of corporate social responsibility as being...

Various attempts have been made by governmental and intergovernmental bodies to establish guidelines that could serve as point of reference for the duties and responsibilities of businesses with respect to human rights as they conduct their business activities. Allegations that businesses, particularly large transnational corporations, were regular...

When contemplating the need and desire to raise capital for use in launching a new business or expanding an existing one, consideration must be given to the type of securities that will be offered and sold to investors. Assuming that the business is operating in the corporate form, a choice must be made between “equity securities”, such as common o...

While some founders may be able to raise financing from venture capitalists without a complete business plan or finished product prototype because of their previous track record and existing relationships with those types of investors, the more likely scenario is that founder will need to find smaller amounts of cash from friends, relatives, “angel...

Obtaining the financing necessary to develop a successful business is one of the major challenges facing any company. There are a number of different sources of capital, including the sale of equity and debt securities to private and public investors, commercial loans and government financing. However, for emerging companies involved in high risk a...

One of the most important steps in completing the financing of any business is the preparation of the materials that describe the company’s business and its owners as well as the required financing and the terms of the securities being offered. These “disclosure” or “offering” documents come in a wide variety of formats, depending upon the audience...

For a long time, a significant potential impediment for sustainability initiatives that required investment of resources in activities that may appear to be unrelated to the traditional focus of corporations on maximizing profits for the stockholders was the fiduciary duties of the directors of the corporation. However, as time has gone by, support...

In a report on its research on the “Future of the Corporation”, The British Academy argued that it was time to reformulate our understanding of the purpose of the corporation, discarding the notion that corporations are to be formed and operated solely for profit in favor of the principle that corporations should focus their attention and resources...

Businesses seeking capital to finance current operations and growth must tap into available “financial systems,” which develop locally, nationally and even globally to facilitate channeling of funds from agents with surpluses to agents with deficits. Researchers looking to analyze and compare financial systems have generally paid attention to how a...

The right to adequate housing was first recognized in Article 25(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a component of the right to an “adequate standard of living”, and has since been acknowledged and described in a number of international human rights instruments including Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Socia...

Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that “[e]veryone, as a member of society, has the right to social security”, and Article 9 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“ICESCR”) calls on States to “recognize the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance”. In its Gener...

Financing is an essential element for establishing a new business, launching a new product or service, or expanding an existing business through internal growth or acquisition. It is likely that entrepreneurs and managers will, regardless of the size of their businesses, need to venture into the world of finance several times over the life cycle of...

The finance function raises a variety of organizational and managerial issues that must be resolved and continuously assessed as the company grows and its needs with respect to accounting, controls, reporting and relations with capital providers evolve and change. Globalization, and breakthroughs in technology, has led to changes in the way that th...

Today even the smallest business can choose from among a wide array of potential sources of capital. In most cases, however, the selection is dictated by the stage of development of the company and the anticipated growth potential of the business in the future. Among the possible sources to consider are the bootstrap financing, government financing...

Recognized international human rights have traditionally been framed as creating duties and obligations for states under treaties and other instruments and elements of international human rights law and, until recently, relatively little attention, if any, was paid to businesses’ responsibility for human rights. This situation has changed amid grow...

Entrepreneurship is a popular topic for researchers and policymakers around the world and much of the work in the area does not distinguish new businesses by size or strategy. However, it is now widely acknowledged that a sub-class of entrepreneurs, often referred to as “growth-oriented entrepreneurs” or “high-growth entrepreneurs”, can be identifi...

While there is no universally accepted definition of a “developing country” it is acknowledged that almost two-thirds of the countries in the world are significantly challenged in their ability to provide a basic standard of living for their citizens and participate competitively in the global economy. Developing countries can be distinguished by a...

Since 1948 there has been almost 20 declarations, principles, resolutions, plans of action and proclamations issued by the United Nations (“UN”) and its instrumentalities relating to aging, and the UN has identified aging as being among the most important global issues of the 21st Century; however, progress has been slow on drafting and adopting a...

The United Nations has identified aging as being among the most important global issues, noting that virtually every country in the world is experiencing growth in the number and proportion of older persons in their population and predicting that aging will become one of the most significant social transformations of the 21st Century impacting near...

Establishing and discharging businesses' duties and responsibilities relating to human rights begins with understanding the scope and content of "human rights law". This is a complex area that has attracted an abundance of theorists and raised basic questions relating to the scope of human rights and which parties, including businesses and other no...

A variety of terms have been used to describe entrepreneurship behavior conducted through an environmental lens including ecopreneurship, eco-entrepreneurship, environmental entrepreneurship, enviropreneurship, green entrepreneurship and green-green businesses. Regardless of the term used, key characteristics and elements of entrepreneurship conduc...

Corporate sustainability requires simultaneous attention to, and satisfaction of, environmental, social, and economic standards, and has been defined as meeting the needs of a firm’s direct and indirect stakeholders (such as shareholders, employees, clients, pressure groups, communities etc.), without compromising its ability to meet the needs of f...

One of the basic tenants of human rights is the freedom to form movements and associations to advance the realization and protection of human rights, and in recent years there has been a call for a true elder rights movement in the spirit of previous social movements that have sought to implement changes in society’s structure or values. In the pas...

The early 2020s has been a time when social justice movements emerged and became increasingly featured in society; however, researchers such as Martin and North cautioned that it is not clear that these movements would necessarily include all social groups, especially older persons, equally since settling on a definition of “equality” requires addr...

Aging is a natural progression of the life cycle and society will always have persons of different ages who need to learn to live alongside one another. One of the most consistent themes in the debate regarding the realization of the human rights of older persons is the need to strengthen "intergenerational solidarity" between and among all levels...

For decades the United Nations has highlighted the need for States, NGOs, media, educational institutions and older persons themselves to challenge and overcome negative stereotyped images of older persons as suffering from physical and psychological disabilities, incapable of functioning independently and having neither role nor status in society....

This chapter works through the evolution of the concept of sustainability that has occurred over the last several decades under the influence of three main groups: ecologists, the United Nation’s World Commission on Environment and Development, often referred to as the “Brundtland Commission”, and business strategists. Over that time, sustainabilit...

The United Nations has recognized the importance of providing opportunities for willing and capable older persons to participate in and contribute to the ongoing activities of society through active participation in the formulation and implementation of policies that directly affect their well-being, opportunities for sharing their knowledge and sk...

As the population in developing countries has aged, increasing dependency ratios, attention has increasingly focused on policy and research relating to increasing participation of older persons in labor markets. Many older persons need and want to continue working beyond "normal" retirement age; however, their ability to work in the traditional lab...

Older persons are entitled to all the recognized civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to work, since such rights are universal and thus belong to all human beings. However, older workers seeking to find their roles in the workplace are continuously challenged by ageism, which has been defined as the stereotypi...

Ageism in the workplace not only take an enormous toll on individual workers and their families, but also has a substantial adverse impact on the economy. In 2019 the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe suggested that there are at least three strategies that should be implemented to combat ageism in the labor market and form age-inclusive...

The right to work is a fundamental human right that is universally recognized as an inherent part of human dignity for persons of all ages and essential for the realization of other human rights. It is clear under various human rights standards that steps need to be taken by States and businesses to promote and protect core labor rights such as the...

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights were drafted and adopted to serve as universally applicable standards to support businesses in developing action plans for identifying, preventing, mitigating, and remediating adverse human rights impacts associated with their internal operations and their business relationships, a process that...

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights require companies to embed their commitment to fulfill their responsibilities to respect human rights in the operational policies and procedures that apply throughout the business enterprise. There is no universal standard for embedding human rights in a company's operations and organizational...

International human rights standards were originally written by states to create a framework and set of goals for governmental action, and it was often argued that such standards did not apply to the private sector. For many, the obligations of businesses with respect to the subjects covered by international human rights standards were limited to c...

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights call on businesses to carry out “human rights due diligence” to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how they address the adverse human rights impacts that they may cause or contribute to through their own activities, or which may be directly linked to their operations, products or serv...

Emergencies, whether caused by conflict or natural disaster (e.g., cyclones, tornados, hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, chemical spills or climate change-induced drought, famine, rainfall variation and shrinkage of water supplies), lead to catastrophic suffering, misery and humanitarian crises and invaria...

As of July 2021, the population of Ukraine was estimated to be 43,745,640, making it the 34th most populous country in the world at that time. Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe after Russia, located in a strategic position at the crossroads between Europe and Asia. Even before the Russian invasion of the country in February 2022, Ukra...

Organizations have committed to investing more money and resources than ever before to increasing diversity and inclusion ("D&I"). According to the Winter 2022 Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey, 94% of the CEOs listed D&I as a personal strategic priority, 90% of those surveyed confirmed that their organizations aspired to be industry leaders in D&I and m...

According to the United Nations, the number of older-age adults across the world has almost quintupled in the last 65 years and by 2050 1 in 6 people in the world will be over the age of 65, up from 1 in 11 in 2019. Among the main drivers of the exponential growth in the older population in developed countries have been increases in the quality of...

The creation of what has become known as the international human rights system began with the activities of the United Nations (“UN”) when it was first established in the aftermath of World War II and it has since grown to include a comprehensive library of treaties (there are nine core international human rights treaties and several important regi...

Access to justice is a core element of the rule of law. Achieving effective access to justice such that older persons can realize the full benefits of the human and civil rights to which they are entitled on a nondiscriminatory basis requires that the justice system enable older persons to enforce their rights and obtain effective remedies and that...

According to a global report on ageism issued in 2021 by the World Health Organization and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, every second person in the world is believed to hold ageist attitudes, which has led to poorer physical and mental health and reduced quality of life for older persons as a result of social isolation and lonel...

Subgroups of older persons benefit from the protection included in human rights instruments that have been created to address the rights of vulnerable groups of which an older person is a member; however, it has been argued by the proponents of a new international human rights instrument devoted to the human rights of older persons that it is neces...

The right to work is a fundamental human right that is universally recognized as an inherent part of human dignity for persons of all ages. However, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has noted that older workers are often devalued by prospective employers as being unproductive, slower and more prone to disease, unfit to learn and a burden t...

International human rights standards were originally written by states to create a framework and set of goals for governmental action and it was often argued that such standards did not apply to the private sector. For many, the obligations of businesses with respect to the subjects covered by international human rights standards were limited to co...

In order to understand the issues surrounding ageism and the steps that must be taken in order to address and remediate them, it is important to investigate the complex question of just what "aging" is. In fact, the concept of "old age" is multidimensional, which includes chronological (based on a birthdate), biological (related to human body abili...

In his "Brief History and Overview of Ageism in America", Butler began by stating that "[a]geism existed long before it was given its name" and noting that "[f]ear of and distaste for growing old are inherent in the human experience". Butler first used the term "ageism" in the late 1960s to describe the process of systematic stereotyping of people...

Academic and popular discussions about politics, business, media and other aspects of society often include references to “generations”, a term that was first used in the realm of human reproductive biology but which has become an assumption that people born within a pre-determined period of years carry a basket of characteristics that differentiat...

Strong societal beliefs and practices causing stereotyping of older persons and discrimination against them are consigning large segments of the population of older adults to poor health, diminished cognitive ability, social isolation and boredom. At the structural level, evidence indicates that ageism leads to denied access to health services and...

Research on access to justice has moved through a series of thematic waves that began with focusing on equality of access to legal services and continued with addressing structural inequalities within the justice system, establishing informal justice processes to prevent disputes from occurring and escalating, focusing efficiency and competition to...

In general, older persons are vulnerable to different legal issues due to increased need for medical treatment and care and diminishing powers of decision-making are associated with vulnerability to yet different legal issues, and older persons, along with other traditionally marginalized groups, report a greater number of legal problems. As such,...

Several attempts have been made to suggest a normative framework for standards of effective access to justice for older persons (i.e., a universally recognized set of legally, politically and morally binding principles for governments) based on international law and commentary, regional standards and other statements, beginning with the principles...

According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (“OHCHR”), “[u]pholding democracy, rule of law, accountability and the effective administration of justice requires the involvement of persons representing all facets of society, in all capacities, … for example as judges, prosecutors, witnesses or jurors”. The OHCHR’s prescriptio...

According to Doron and his colleagues, "the area of legal inquiry that is today referred to as 'elder law' or 'law and ageing' was virtually unknown in the field of law" before the early 1970s and when it was first founded in the US the legal issues that were most common for older persons were typically addressed by lawyers concentrating their prac...

Long-term care includes activities undertaken by others to ensure that those with a significant ongoing loss of physical or mental capacity can maintain a level of ability to be and to do what they have reason to value and involves a variety of services provided in a number of places and by different groups of caregivers ranging from care in the ho...

23% of the persons in the US who were age 65 and over in 2017 (11.8 million) were members of racial or ethnic minority populations—9% were African-Americans (not Hispanic), 4% were Asian (not Hispanic), 0.5% were American Indian and Alaska Native (not Hispanic), 0.1% were Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, (not Hispanic) and 0.8% of persons age 65 a...

According to estimates based on data compiled and analyzed by the World Bank, the global population of women aged 65 and over as of 2020 was 397 million (an increase of 106 million from a decade earlier), representing 55% of the total global population of persons aged 65 and over (722 million) and 10.35% of the world’s total female population (comp...

The World Health Organization has reported that approximately 15% of the global population, over 1 billion people worldwide, had some form of disability, and that an additional 190 million people (3.8% of people over 15 years of age) experience serious difficulties in functioning normally on a daily basis. In the US, 61 million, or 26% of, adult Am...

The basic rights of older persons to adequate health care have been breached in a number of ways during the Covid-19 pandemic including inability to get access to testing and treatment for the virus (e.g., older persons with symptoms of the virus were turned away from hospitals and other care providers and were not transferred from care homes to ho...

Discrimination on the basis of race is a fundamental human rights issue. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set out therein, without distinction of any kind, in particular as to race, color or national...

Businesses have long been called upon to comply with a range of formal laws and regulations in various areas related to sustainability-related responsibilities including laws and regulations pertaining to the environmental impact of their operations, the employment relationship, working conditions and health and safety standards. However, apart fro...

Corporate sustainability initiatives are most effective when sustainability principles have been integrated into the company’s governance and management processes and proactively and publicly embraced by the board of directors, which is responsible for oversight of the environmental and social impacts of the company’s operations. This paper discuss...

Sustainable finance has been explained to be a long-term approach to finance and investing, emphasizing long-term thinking, decision-making and value creation, and has also been described as the interrelationships that exist between environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) issues on the one hand, and financing, lending and investment decisions,...

Entrepreneurs, managers, and their firms do not operate in a vacuum. Instead, each of their activities, including strategic business planning, must be undertaken and understood in the context of the specific demands and requirements of the environment in which the company conducts its business activities. Among other things, the environment determi...

Sustainability is about the long-term wellbeing of society, an issue that encompasses a wide range of aspirational targets including the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by world leaders that went into effect on January 1, 2016. The SDGs, which include, among other things, ending poverty an...

Many companies have looked to corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) initiatives of governmental or intergovernmental bodies as the foundation for creating their own CSR commitments. The instruments that have been developed and promoted by the United Nations and the other entities are widely-recognized as legitimate standards that have emerged fro...

Since the late 1990s there has been a proliferation of transnational, voluntary standards for what constitutes responsible corporate actions, including standards that have been developed by states; public/private partnerships; multi-stakeholder negotiation processes; industries and companies; institutional investors; functional groups such as accou...

Delivery of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development should be important to businesses that realize that they will not be able to achieve sustainable success in a world of poverty, inequality, unrest and environmental stress. As such, companies should contribute to the SDGs by upholding recognized...

Companies should begin the process of developing a corporate social responsibility ("CSR") strategy by collecting and analyzing information to assess the potential role of social responsibility in the company's business activities, benchmark their CSR profile against the efforts of competitors, learn more about the needs and expectations of their s...

Impact investing is aimed directly at creating a positive environmental or social impact by identifying and solving a particular environmental or social problem. The term “impact investing” was coined by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2007 and today the most commonly used definition is the one proposed by the Global Impact Investment Network (“GIIN”...

While more and more directors and executives are acknowledging the importance of sustainability to their strategies for financial success, companies have continued to struggle with embedding sustainability into their core business practices and overall organizational design. In order for the sustainability strategy to be effective and successful, i...

Sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) have become mainstays of business activities: the percentage of large global companies professing to practice some form of sustainability and CSR has been steadily increasing, sustainability reporting has become the norm and businesses of all sizes are subject to sustainability and CSR driver...

This chapter described tools, structures and instruments used by impact investors to effectively apply their theories of environmental and/or social change. Impact tools are actions that impact investors can take to create a portfolio that is aligned with the investor’s investment and impact goals. Each impact investment needs to be structured prop...

In order to assure the quality of sustainability reporting and facilitate the efficient creation of comparable reports, it is necessary to have robust reporting standards that can be applied in a global economy in which the operational activities and reporting responsibilities of companies transcend national borders. International organizations, su...

Community engagement and dialogue—sharing information and listening to community members to provide them with a voice on matters that impact them—is the cornerstone of everything a company does vis-à-vis the community in which operates. Community engagement appears in many of the voluntary standards relating to sustainability and reporting on susta...