Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:47:56.926Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Limits of Corporate Human Rights Obligations and the Rights of For-Profit Corporations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

John Douglas Bishop
John Douglas Bishop*
Affiliation:
Trent University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

The extension of human rights obligations to corporations raises questions about whose rights and which rights corporations are responsible for. This paper gives a partial answer by asking what legal rights corporations would need to have to fulfil various sorts of human rights obligations. We should compare the chances of human rights fulfilment (and violations) that are likely to result from assigning human rights obligations to corporations with the chances of human rights fulfilment (and violations) that are likely to result from giving corporations the legal rights needed to undertake those human rights obligations. Corporations should respect basic human rights of all people. Non-complicity in human rights violations requires that corporations have the right to political freedom of speech. To actively protect people from human rights violations, corporations need the right to hire armed security personnel; such obligations should be limited to protecting corporate property and narrowly defined stakeholders. Obligations to spend corporate resources on human rights fulfilment are confined to contributing to specific projects. Corporations have no obligation to ensure a society in which human rights are fulfilled. This principle helps us understand why corporate obligations are substantially different from those of governments.

Keywords

human rightsbusinesscorporationsduties
Type
Special Issue: Human Rights and Business
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 119 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Archard, D. 2004. Welfare rights as human rights. In Campbell, T. & Miller, S. (Eds.), Human rights and the moral responsibilities of corporate and public sector organisations: 45–62. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, D.G. 2006. Corporate moral agency. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 30: 279–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, D.G. 2010. Transnational corporations and the duty to respect basic human rights. Business Ethics Quarterly, 20 (3): 371–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arrow, K.J. 1951. Social choice and individual values. New York: Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Bishop, J.D. 2000. A framework for discussing normative theories of business ethics. Business Ethics Quarterly, 10 (3): 563–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, J.D. 2008. For-profit corporations in a just society: A social contract argument concerning the rights and responsibilities of corporations. Business Ethics Quarterly, 18 (2): 191–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, T. 2004a. Introduction. In Campbell, T. & Miller, S. (Eds.), Human rights and the moral responsibilities of corporate and public sector organisations: 1–8. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Campbell, T. 2004b. Moral dimensions of human rights. In Campbell, T. & Miller, S. (Eds.), Human rights and the moral responsibilities of corporate and public sector organisations: 11–30. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copp, D. 2000. Capitalism versus democracy: the marketing of votes and the marketing of political power. In Bishop, J.D. (Ed.), Ethics and capitalism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Cragg, W. 2000. Human rights and business ethics: Fashioning a new social contract. Journal of Business Ethics, 27: 205–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cragg, W. 2004. Human rights, globalisation and the modern corporation. In Campbell, T. & Miller, S. (Eds.), Human rights and the moral responsibilities of corporate and public sector organisations: 105–28. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cragg, W. 2010. Ethics, human rights and the modern multnational corporation. Paper presented at the CBERN Business and Human Rights workshop, York University, February 2010.Google Scholar
Donaldson, T., & Dunfee, T.W. 1994. Toward a unified conception of business ethics: Integrative social contracts theory. Academy of Management Review, 19 (2): 252–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donaldson, T., & Dunfee, T.W. 1995. Integrative social contracts theory: A communitarian conception of economic ethics. Economics and Philosophy, 11: 85–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donaldson, T., & Dunfee, T.W. 1999. Ties that bind: A social contracts approach to business ethics. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Douzinas, C. 2000. The end of human rights: Critical legal thought at the end of the century. Oxford: Hart.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drohan, M. 2003. Making a killing: How and why corporations use armed force to do business. Toronto: Random House Canada.Google Scholar
Dworkin, R. 1977. Taking rights seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Elms, H., and Phillips, R.A. 2009. Private security companies and institutional legitimacy: Corporate and stakeholder responsibility. Business Ethics Quarterly, (19)3: 403–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
French, P.A. 1979. The corporation as a moral person. American Philosophical Quarterly, 16(3): 207–15.Google Scholar
Friedman, M. 1970. The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. The New York Times Magazine(September 13).Google Scholar
Griffin, J. 2004. Human rights: Whose duties?. In Campbell, T. & Miller, S. (Eds.), Human rights and the moral responsibilities of corporate and public sector organisations: 31–44. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hess, D., & Dunfee, T.W. 2007. The Kasky-Nike threat to corporate social reporting: Implementing a standard of optimal truthful disclosure as a solution. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17(1): 5–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hillemanns, C.F. 2003. UN norms on the responsibilities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights. German Law Journal, 4(10): 1065–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horwitz, M.J. 1977. The transformation of American law, 1780–1860. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsieh, N. 2009. Does global business have a responsibility to promote just institutions?. Business Ethics Quarterly, 19(2): 251–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KasandraProject. 2007. Killer corporations: Numbers and economy http://kassandraproject.wordpress.com/2007/12/23/killer-corporations-numbers-and-economy. Accessed July 24, 2008.Google Scholar
Lane, M. 2004. Autonomy as a central human right and its implications for the moral responsibilities of corporations. In Campbell, T. & Miller, S. (Eds.), Human rights and the moral responsibilities of corporate and public sector organisations: 145–63. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malcolm, J. 1994. Do corporations have rights?Unpublished thesis, Murdoch University.Google Scholar
Mayer, C.J. 1990. Personalizing the impersonal: Corporations and the Bill of Rights. The Hastings Law Journal, 41: 577–667.Google Scholar
Mayer, D. 2007. Kasky v. Nike and the quarrelsome question of corporate free speech. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17(1): 65–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Micklethwait, J., & Wooldridge, A. 2003. The company: A short history of a revolutionary idea. New York: Modern Library.Google Scholar
Mitchell, S.D. 2009. Unsimple truths: Science, complexity, and policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monbiot, G. 2006. Heat: How to stop the planet burning. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Muchlinski, P. 2001. Human rights and multinationals: Is there a problem?. International Affairs, 77: 31–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostas, D.T. 2007. The law and ethics of K Street: Lobbying, the First Amendment, and the duty to create just laws. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17(1): 33–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perrow, C. 2002. Organizing America: Wealth, power, and the origins of corporate capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ruggie, J. 2008. Protect, respect and remedy: A framework for business and human rights. United Nations Doc. A/HRC/8/5 (April 7).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scherer, A.G., & Palazzo, G. 2007. Toward a political conception of corporate responsibility: Business and society seen from a Habermasian perspective. Academy of Management Review, 32: 1096–1120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shue, H. 1980. Basic rights: Subsistence, affluence, and U.S. foreign policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sumner, L.W. 1987. The moral foundation of rights. Oxford: Claredon Press.Google Scholar
Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights 2011. The voluntary principles on security+human rights. http://www.voluntaryprinciples.org/principles/. Accessed June 10, 2011.Google Scholar
Wettstein, F. 2010. The duty to protect: Corporate complicity, political responsibility, and human rights advocacy. Journal of Business Ethics, 96(1): 33–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, R.G., & Pickett, K. 2010. The spirit level: Why greater equality makes societies stronger. New York: Bloomsbury Press.Google Scholar
Zinnbauer, D. 2009. Corrupting the rules of the game: From legitimate lobbying to capturing regulation and policies. In Transparency International, Global corruption report 2009. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar