What Role for Human Rights in Business?

The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) were endorsed by the United Nations Human Rights Council in June 2011, following the six‐year mandate of the Special Representative to the Secretary General (SRSG) on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. The SRSG developed a framework comprised of three pillars: (1) States have a duty to protect against human rights abuses committed by third parties, including business enterprises; (2) business enterprises have a responsibility to respect human rights; and (3) victims of business‐related human rights abuses need access to effective remedies. In particular, guiding principle (GP) 11 provides that business enterprises should respect human rights, that is, they should avoid infringing on the human rights of others and address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved. This article considers the implications of the Guiding Principles' framework for business; the continuing role of conventional accountability mechanisms in providing access to remedy for victims under the third pillar of the framework; and developments in ‘hard law', with a particular focus on the approach by the UK, since the introduction of the UNGPs, before turning, briefly, to the future for business and human rights.     

Clarity of responsibility and foreign policy performance voting

Do voters’ assessments of the government's foreign policy performance influence their vote intentions? Does the ‘clarity of responsibility’ in government moderate this relationship? Existing research on the United States demonstrates that the electorate's foreign policy evaluations influence voting behaviour. Whether a similar relationship exists across the advanced democracies in Europe remains understudied, as does the role of domestic political institutions that might generate responsibility diffusion and dampen the effect of foreign policy evaluations on vote choice. Using the attitudinal measures of performance from the 2011 Transatlantic Trends survey collected across 13 European countries, these questions are answered in this study through testing on incumbent vote the diffusion‐inducing effects of five key domestic factors frequently used in the foreign policy analysis literature. Multilevel regression analyses conclude that the electorate's ability to assign punishment decreases at higher levels of responsibility diffusion, allowing policy makers to circumvent the electoral costs of unpopular foreign policy. Specifically, coalition governments, semi‐presidential systems, ideological dispersion among the governing parties and the diverse allocation of the prime ministerial and foreign policy portfolios generate diffusion, dampening the negative effects of foreign policy disapproval on vote choice. This article contributes not only to the debate on the role of foreign policy in electoral politics, but also illustrates the consequential effects of domestic institutions on this relationship.     

Choosing to be political: some reflections on youth activism in the US

This article explores youth activism in the US, not through the lens of collective action, but as the product of personal choices. By drawing on existentialism, and particularly on the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, this article proposes to shift the focus of the debate from youths’ collective action to the self – a conscious self that observes, perceives and makes sense of the surrounding world through personal experience. It is this conscious self that decides how, and whether, to intervene against the ‘wrong’ that the self experiences. In this perspective, it is not only the acts (of citizenship) that matter, but the conscious process through which the self chooses to become political. Such an understanding will ultimately help uncover not only how the undocumented act and how to conceptualise their acts but also how they perceive and experience their current status and who they want to become.     

Multinationals as global institution: Power,authority and relative autonomy

This article aims to inform the long‐standing and unresolved debate between voluntary corporate social responsibility and initiatives to impose binding legal obligations on multinational enterprises. The two approaches share a common feature: neither can fully specify its own scope conditions, that is, how much of the people and planet agenda either can expect to deliver. The reason they share this feature is also the same: neither is based on a foundational political analysis of the multinational enterprise in the context of global governance. Such an analysis is essential for providing background to and perspective on what either approach can hope to achieve, and how. This article begins to bridge the gap by illustrating aspects of the political power, authority, and relative autonomy of the contemporary multinational enterprise. The conclusion spells out some implications for the debate itself, and for further research.     

Conceptualising corporate community development

Globally there is an increasing focus on the private sector as a significant development actor. One element of the private sector’s role emphasised within this new focus has been corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, whereby the private sector claims to contribute directly to local development. There is now a substantial body of work on CSR but it is a literature that is mostly polarised, dominated by concerns from the corporate perspective, and not adequately theorised. Corporations typically do development differently from NGOs and donors, yet the nature and effects of these initiatives are both under-researched and under-conceptualised. In this paper we argue that viewing CSR initiatives through a community development lens provides new insights into their rationale and effects. Specifically we develop a conceptual framework that draws together agency and practice-centred approaches in order to illuminate the processes and relationships that underpin corporate community development initiatives.     

Re-conceptualizing State Responsibility: Human Security Protection, Confl icts and Governance

Different from the perspective of traditional national security, human security is an essential component of non-traditional security. Human security is influenced by multi-dimensional factors. Human security will be threatened if one or more of these dimensional factors get twisted. Such threats, once accumulated to a certain level, may trigger a confl ict. While some factors may have a low correlation with confl ict, some other factors may have a multiplying effect in triggering the confl ict. Further, confl ict may be triggered by a single factor or multiple factors. Poor governance may lead to escalation of confl icts. Deep understanding of triggering effects and their correlation with confl icts is essential to addressing the root causes and the management of conflicts effectively. Concepts of human security, state responsibility of protection and neo-interventionism have been developed in succession. Though the people-centered security framework draws global attention, it should be recognized that there is no international consensus on an optimal type of governance. However, according to the Charter of the United Nations, the primary responsibilities of human security protection should be rested on the government of a state. The principle of sovereignty remains the fundamental principle of international relations, which should be the guiding principle for addressing human security issues.     

浅议开发商迟延办理商品房权属证书的法律责任

近年来商品房买卖合同纠纷案件的数量急剧上升，而其中又尤以开发商迟延办理权属证书引发纠纷的比例居多。此类纠纷的爆发具有群体性特征，开发商与购房者间的利益冲突尖锐．审理判决稍有疏失或法律适用未能完全说服当事人便可能引发社会秩序不稳的后果。因此。厘清实践中普遍存在的开发商迟延办理商品房权属证书的违约责任及其诉讼时效的法律依据与法学原理．为审判实践提供统一的适用标准与理论支撑无疑兼具重要的学术价值和现实意义。本文从该类纠纷所涉的基本法律概念与原理入手，通过综合比较学界的不同论点与法律、法规、司法解释的效力层级，力求清晰的体现审判实务中迟延办证违约责任追究及其诉讼时效的法律适用。     

论农村社会保障法律制度构建中的政府责任——基于社会法视阈

农村社会保障法律关系错综复杂,政府、社会及农民在农村社会保障中既有相应的权力(利),也要履行一定的义务。行政法、经济法和社会法各自具有独特的法律价值和调整对象,本文分别基于这三个法域检视农村社会保障法律制度构建中的政府责任,考察农村社会保障法律制度构建中政府责任的越位和缺位,反思政府在构建农村社会保障法律制度中所发挥的主导和基础作用,提出在社会法视阈下政府应定位在承担法律制度构建、财政支撑和监督管理之责任。     

扣缴义务人责任研究：类型化与反思

税法上扣缴义务人未完全履行扣缴义务，脱法扣缴行为随之产生，扣缴制度的立法目的成空，追究扣缴义务人责任是为必然。依现行税法规定，扣缴义务人不仅将视情况承担“补缴、追缴”，“限期改正、责令改正”、“刑事处罚”等主责任，而且需承担“滞纳金”，“罚款”或“滞纳金与罚款”等一并使用的从责任。责任形态的复杂性和现行税法的诸多缺陷，导致扣缴义务人责任实务运用极为混乱。要想从源头上解决此问题，必须对扣缴义务人责任进行多维定性，以扣缴义务人基本权利的行使作为扣缴制度财政目的的边界，以财政目的的实现作为扣缴义务人义务履行、权利行使的边界。     

重特大生产安全事故赔偿过程中的政府职能

近年来,有些地方人民政府在处理重特大生产安全事故的过程中,就受害人的民事赔偿事宜采取了诸多举措,如决定赔偿金额、支付赔偿金或综合帮扶资金等。这些举措虽可使受害人获得及时、适当甚至高额的赔偿,但同时也会影响我国基本的法律秩序、限制当事人的民事处分权利、导致社会不公,有时还可能成为地方有些官员平息民怨、为自己开脱政治责任的方式。尽管如此,地方人民政府适当介入重特大事故民事赔偿事宜有其必要,只是应在法制的框架内运作,主要发挥督促、协调和配合三大功能。