Business and Human Rights We must apply best practices in human rights, workers' rights, environmental policy, and the fight against corruption. These practices should be universal. But the reality is that children and adults are bought and sold, rights and freedoms are routinely ignored, the pharmaceutical patents system rides roughshod over the principles of fairness, and injustice reigns everywhere. In her article, Professor Adela Cortina examines a new framework that international organizations are attempting to establish, guided by the three ideals: protect, respect, and remedy.
The discourse of human rights breached the walls of the business establishment years ago, and has had a following wind since 2003, when the United Nations introduced its Norms on the responsibilities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights, and 2005, when the UN Commission on Human Rights requested that a Special Representative be appointed for this field of concern. Though opposed by the United States, the resolution was carried by a vote in favor by 49 out of 53 countries, and, in August 2005, John Ruggie was confirmed in that new office. Why was it necessary to open up a forum expressly engaging in thought and action on human rights in the business world?
Past experience ─such as the Union Carbide Disaster in Bhopal, India, in 1984, where a poisonous leak killed thousands and afflicted close to 200,000 with permanent serious illness; exploitative sweatshops and plantations around the world; the effects of drug patents on the death figures for AIDS and other diseases; violations of the freedom of expression and assembly in the world's "South"─ counsels that awareness of the formidable array of potential injustices may help us make the right response.
In light of situations like these, it is not enough that a corporation