Radu Mares

• Doctor docent
• Lund University

Creating Shared Value (CSV), Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment, and Responsible Business Conduct (RBC), are three frameworks used to assess the sustainability impacts of businesses. As the relative newcomer, we assess the role of CSV developed in strategic management studies by Porter and Kramer in the light of the latest advanc...

Like the UN recognition of the right to a healthy environment, the Escazú Agreement (EA) on Access to Information, public participation and justice in environmental matters (2018) is a relatively recent environmental democracy instrument connecting human rights and environmental law. In this article, we unpack what environmental democracy means in...

The textbook was designed as an introduction to RBC at a basic to intermediary level given the novelty of the topic for most readers. Our overriding aim was to offer a concise, but thoughtful and informative presentation of RBC and human rights issues in the Cambodian context. A key consideration was the intended audience: teachers, researchers and...

In response to the climate emergency, the European Union seeks to establish a new model of inclusive growth and depicts this shift as a ‘green, fair and competitive transition’. The article examines the EU sustainable corporate governance initiative commenced in 2018 that has crystalized after 4 years in a Commission’s proposal for a Directive on c...

The aim of this chapter is to inform reflection on business self-regulation (or corporate social responsibility, 'CSR') in addressing climate change by drawing on developments in 'business and human rights' and the experience accumulated in the EU. Despite dissimilarities in addressing the environmental and human right impacts of business operation...

The United Nations is the arena for a renewed push to regulate transnational corporations (TNCs) and their supply chains. This article analyses the ongoing efforts of a multilateral organization to strengthen the human rights legal framework, especially the design choices posed by the treaty negotiations as well as the role of the UN Human Rights C...

The process to elaborate a legally binding instrument on Business and Human Rights started in 2014. The stated ambition animating UN process is to deliver a broad-spectrum treaty that significantly increases remediation for victims. However the treaty has polarized opinion from the very beginning. To come closer to genuine points of disagreement an...

The compendium is a teaching aid for lecturers at university level. It is a ‘cases and materials’ type of book spread through 30 chapters and 800 pages combining diverse materials from 4 types of sources: law and policy, business practice, NGOs materials, and academic writings. The compendium was developed by RWI in collaboration with academics fro...

Multinational enterprises have outsourced production and distribution to layers of subsidiaries and contractors to expand into new markets and increase profitability. This compartmentalization of the enterprise is facilitated by company laws and has resulted in risk shifting, excessive risk taking and lack of remediation for those injured. Company...

This is a study of three authoritative instruments that promote a common idea: economic activities and development should be conducted with respect for human rights. The World Bank Framework, the International Financial Corporation Performance Standards and the UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights are examined to get clarity on how hu...

This chapter accounts for the special context of mining and discusses what “respecting” human rights means in the mining industry. The aim of the chapter is to clarify the relationship between social investments and respect for human rights in a context characterised by the disruption mining operations cause and weaker local capacities to cope with...

Following John Ruggie’s UN mandate (2005-2011) the notion of human rights due diligence (HRDD) has become widely used by policymakers, corporations, NGOs and professionals. The question is whether this HRDD concept, as developed in the UN Guiding Principles (GPs), adequately addresses the deeper causes of human rights infringements in business oper...

The article examines reporting laws to determine if and how these laws shape corporate conduct and protect human rights. Since 2010 a wave of laws with extraterritorial effects has appeared as home states of multinationals began to mandate social disclosures. However, opinions as to their importance differ and some wonder whether these transparency...

Journal of Southwest University of Political Science ＆ Law, Vol. 20, No． 2 (April 2018)

This brief explains the progression of legal reasoning around corporate human rights responsibilities during the last two decades. One can identify three stages, or “baselines”, that were drawn in the mid-2000s, in 2011, and post-2014 on how to regulate the activities of multinational enterprises (MNEs). After endorsing the UN Guiding Principles on...

This brief puts forward three foundational principles that explain the difficulties in regulating multinational enterprises. This has implications on whether more or less coercive strategies could be pursued to ensure responsible business conduct. The task of regulating lead firms should remain mindful of fundamental considerations of corporate law...

This brief tracks recent developments in different policy fields such as economic law, human rights and development cooperation, and corporate social responsibility. Root causes of abuses in transnational business operations are highlighted both at the top and bottom of the supply chain. There are six transnational policy channels that bear on thes...

The story of human rights corporate accountability is not a story of a move towards stringent international and transnational regulations. One discussion nowadays is whether the UN Guiding Principles on business and human rights (UNGPs) should be hardened into law. Regulations on human rights due diligence (HRDD) would increase access to remedies f...

Cambridge Core - Governance - Building a Treaty on Business and Human Rights - edited by Surya Deva

- A Review of a Classic Book: Andrew Clapham , Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) pp. 648. - Volume 1 Issue 2 - Radu MARES

This article accounts for recent developments in corporate social responsibility, international trade and investment law, international human rights law, development aid, and the laws of home states reaching extraterritorially in order to advance a regulatory perspective on commerce and human rights. While these developments are remarkable, the ana...

Table of Contents I. Skinner’s Arguments and Their Merits ..........................117 II. The First Baseline: The Legalistic Approach Behind the UN Draft Norms ...........................................122 III. The Second Baseline: The Polycentric Approach Behind the UN Guiding Principles .................................128 IV. The Third Baseli...

Some of the emblematic cases of corporate-related infringements of human rights have appeared in unstable and violence-ridden zones, including armed conflict and other contexts with lower levels of conflict, internal disturbances, widespread violence and latent tensions. Businesses have been involved in different ways, as direct perpetrators, accom...

The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (‘GPs’) were unanimously endorsed in 2011 in the UN Human Rights Council and also recorded an unprecedented level of stakeholder support. Does this watershed signify a genuine convergence of expectations? Is the GPs’ conceptualization of the corporate ‘responsibility to respect’ (RtR) truly able t...

An important part of responsible business practices is compliance with the law. This article details what actually happens when the laws of the host country fail to ensure adequate protection. The focus here is on land dispossession and loss of livelihood in relation to a gold mine project in central Ghana. How is it that a well‐known international...

Prof. Ruggie’s work, with the 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' Framework (2008) and 'Guiding Principles' (2011) as its peak, is multilayered and comprehensive. Instead of a dry, tedious description this introductory chapter will give the floor often to the SRSG: readers will find numerous quotations and references that will allow him or her to follow...

This chapter discusses the treatment that Professor Ruggie’s Guiding Principles offer for the responsibility to respect human rights (RtR) as applied to core companies whose affiliates’ operations infringe human rights. The issue is about a core company’s responsibility to act to address abuses that occur towards the periphery of its group or netwo...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is often understood as an inherently voluntary corporate endeavour that inhabits the area stretching 'beyond compliance' with law. However, a growing number of writers and practitioners deem this understanding of CSR inaccurate and unproductive. In this article, the notion of CSR as 'beyond compliance' is quest...

One challenge in the area of supply chain management has been achieving sustainable compliance with labour rights throughout the entire production chain, including lower tiers of production. This article inquires specifically around sub-contracting, especially what is a brand's or a buyer's responsibility regarding workers' rights beyond its first...