Corporate Respect for Human Rights and Solidarity

The purpose of the research proposal is to develop a theoretical framework of business as an addressee of human rights and social solidarity demands taking into consideration the special challenges of the post-socialist societies and paying attention to the role of responsible business conduct in times of global emergencies.

Background

The point is that individual human rights must develop contextually by taking into account our collective responsibilities for each other’s well-being. Emphasising solidarity will contribute to a more complete understanding of the business and human rights concept.

The modern understanding of human rights and the concept of neoliberalism developed simultaneously, providing an ideological basis for each other. Neoliberalism believed the global competitive market would be effective to ensure international economic harmony, and therefore the role of governments was confined to creating and defending markets. Neoliberalism emphasises individual responsibility based on the belief that if everyone has unimpeded access to the market, everyone will benefit equally from it. While classical liberalism sought to free the economy from the state or, more precisely, to establish sufficient freedoms for the economy, in neoliberalism the market becomes the mode of rationality for both state and society. Neoliberalism thus raises ‘the market to a principle of all life and of government.’ This has led many academics and business leaders to believe that respect for human rights and fulfilling social responsibilities are not business matters.

In recent years, developments in the BHR field, both in practice and scholarly discussions, have highlighted the human rights responsibilities of corporate actors. However, firstly, such developments are mainly discussed in the Western European and Anglo-Saxon legal traditions. Secondly, even in the mainstream BHR discourse, such scientific developments continue to highlight the concept of "business OR human rights" (Deva). And in post-socialist societies, this concept prevails, with an emphasis on the business case, i.e. that it is profitable to behave responsible. Thirdly, existing developments do not take into account social solidarity requirements, emphasising individual human rights instead.

In Ukraine, the idea of BHR is new from a scientific viewpoint but we have seen important developments in practice. One of the first thematic discussions in this field in Ukraine took place in 2017 within the Kharkiv International Legal Forum I organised. Ukraine has seen significant positive changes in the implementation of BHR standards since then. But there remains a lack of policy coherence in UNGPs implementation in Ukraine. This is mostly because of the lack of academic dialogue and of a strong theoretical framework capable to adapt and make sense of the local context.

What we see, therefore, is that the current framework for responsible business conduct is not suited to deal with recent societal developments and post-soviet contexts. This research proposal aims to fill this gap by reconceptualising RBC, beyond the corporate responsibility to respect articulated in the UNGPs.

Project description

The research aims to address the following questions:

• How is the concept of corporate respect for human rights transformed under the influence of the social solidarity idea?
• What (public and private) regulation aimed at balancing individual human rights and the requirements of social solidarity is applied in different regions of the world (with a focus on comparing Western democracies and post-socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia)?
• What influence do international/regional human rights protection systems have on determining how to balance individual human rights and social solidarity?
• What factors influence RBC and ensuring the effective implementation of human rights and social solidarity requirements by corporate actors?
• What are the common and distinctive characteristics of business compared to other non-state actors that influence the scope of their human rights and social solidarity responsibilities?
• How to implement human rights and social solidarity requirements depending on ownership (private, state, municipal companies), size (small, medium, large), functions (provision of essential and/or strategic goods and services or not), and territories (transnational, national, local companies)?
• What principles should be used to balance individual human rights and social solidarity in business activities, including in situations of global emergencies and war?

Thus this project’s main research question is: How to conceptualise RBC so that it includes both the corporate responsibility to respect human rights and solidarity, and is better suited to various contexts including war and crises, and non-Western new democracies?

This research project is significant for my own research profile. Thanks to the research training opportunities available at WUR and access to the library, I plan to improve my research skills for social science research, beyond my strong existing skills in legal/doctrinal research. I aim to submit 3 articles to open-access peer-reviewed journals in English during the project. Moreover, another key aim of the research project is to publish a book ‘Solidarity as Responsible Business Conduct: Beyond Corporate Respect for Human Rights’ in Ukrainian and English and use this to defend a ‘second dissertation’ (doctor of legal sciences) a NLU, after the end of the fellowship.

Events

Overall, there is a need to raise awareness and build capacity of academia, CSOs and the business sector across the Eastern Partnership region on BHR issues. WUR will support the efforts to develop BHR courses for the universities of the region, equip scholars from EaP countries with BHR research methodology and assist them to become better integrated into the global BHR research and teaching discourse, in particular with the resources of the BHR teaching forum and the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association, in which both myself and my WUR mentor hold leadership positions.

(A) Academic events

• 3 online events with scholars from EU and non-EU universities from Eastern Europe and Central Asia to discuss balancing individual human rights and social solidarity demands;
• 2 panel discussions on RBC and solidarity during the 2023 and 2024 Kharkiv Legal Forum;
• Rapid-reaction seminars (in case of landmark/milestone events, cases, regulations);
• 3 methodological BHR research interdisciplinary workshops for PhD students in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, ECRs and teaching staff.

(B) Practice-oriented events

• 2 open discussions with civil society representatives and business associations to discuss solidarity as responsible business conduct.

Results

This project’s main research question is: How to conceptualise RBC so that it includes both the corporate responsibility to respect human rights and solidarity, and is better suited to various contexts including war and crises, and non-Western new democracies?

Answering this novel question in BHR scholarship will also allow to build models of regulation (state and non-state) suited to situations of global emergencies and to identify the specificities of balancing social solidarity and individual human rights in Western democracies and post-socialist countries. The project therefore also has practical implications.