Transnational Corporations and Human Rights Duties: Perfect and Imperfect

This paper aims, firstly, to bridge debates on human rights and Transnational Corporations (TNCs) within practical philosophy and those within the business and human rights literature and, secondly, to determine the extent to which human rights duties can be assigned to TNCs. To justifiably assign human rights duties to TNCs, it is argued that these duties need to be grounded in moral theory. Through assessment of two approaches from practical philosophy, it is argued that positive duties cannot be assigned to TNCs because their bindingness cannot be grounded in moral theory. A positive argument is introduced to interpret TNCs’ human rights duties as corresponding to virtues rather than rights. Though such duties are indeterminate regarding what constitutes adequate performance, they can be made more determinate through legal instruments outside of positive human rights law. An approach is introduced exemplifying how such approaches can achieve the end of TNCs compliance with human rights norms.     

Implementing International Human Rights Law at Home: Domestic Politics and the European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) boasts one of the strongest oversight systems in international human rights law, but implementing the ECtHR??s rulings is an inherently domestic and political process. This article begins to bridge the gap between the Court in Strasbourg and the domestic process of implementing the Court??s rulings by looking at the domestic institutions and politics that surround the execution of the ECtHR??s judgments. Using case studies from the UK and Russia, this article identifies two factors that are critical for the domestic implementation of the Court??s rulings: strong domestic, democratic institutions dedicated to implementing the ECtHR??s judgments and an overarching sense of responsibility to set a good example at home and abroad for respecting human rights and the rule of law. This article concludes with a discussion of the steps necessary to facilitate better implementation of the ECtHR??s rulings.     

Norm Proxy War and Resistance Through Outsourcing: The Dynamics of Transnational Human Rights Contestation

A great deal of constructivist international relations research on norms focuses on the diffusion of liberal human rights values. In contrast, this article analyzes how critics seek to undermine human rights principles in contexts where human rights norms are increasingly hegemonic. It argues that when norm challengers are frustrated by the institutionalization of human rights, they engage in transnational strategies to pursue their agendas. In norm proxy war, actors patronize surrogates in locales where norms are weak in the hope that victories abroad will reverberate internationally and at home. This dynamic is illustrated by American evangelical sponsorship of political homophobia in Uganda, culminating in that country’s draconian anti-LGBT legislation. When norms are resisted through outsourcing, actors contract out human rights violations in an effort to erode norms through practice, as evidenced by patterns of extraterritorial detention and extraordinary rendition to torture in the post-9/11 “Global War on Terror.” Identifying these patterns broadens understanding of potential pathways of norm contestation.     

Human Rights Discourse in Domestic Settings: How Does it Emerge?

Building on the literature that analyzes the impact of norms and ideas on international and domestic politics, it is our assumption that the widespread introduction and dissemination of a human rights discourse enables oppressed groups to translate events into rights language and to appeal to courts, politicians and media in order to seek remedies for their grievances. In so far as human rights discourse actually helps introduce more ethical policies and legislation, it is crucial to understand how this discourse, which in the past 55 years evolved and proliferated on the global level, emerges and develops in domestic settings. Using Israel as a case study, and more specifically analyzing the Israeli press, we further develop some of the existing theoretical claims about how the global and local interact. We argue that in order to understand how the rights discourse is imported into the domestic arena and how it expands once it enters the local scene, it is crucial to employ a broader conception of the global and a more differentiated view of the local. We emphasize the significance of local events and practices in determining the impact of the global on national settings, suggesting that one cannot understand transnational flows without unveiling the black box of the domestic arena.     

Inside Moves and Outside Views: An Australian Case Study of Elite and Public Perceptions of Political Corruption

The search for a definition of political corruption that adequately captures the nuances of governmental activity has been a long one. This article defends social or attitudinal definitions of corruption against some recent criticisms. It examines the value of Arnold Heidenheimer's widely cited distinctions among "black,""gray," and "white" corruption using empirical evidence from an interview study of over 100 Australian politicians and 500 voters. The results show that the broad dimensions of corruption — the official, the donor, the payoff, and the favor — identified by John Peters and Susan Welch affect the views of both politicians and voters alike.
Nonetheless, elites and the public come to judgments from different perspectives, and they judge some acts differently. Put another way, some corruption is gray. Politicians judge actions more subtly than do voters, who are more likely to see corruption in all acts. As Michael Johnston has suggested, the different experiences of political insiders and outsiders explain this disparity in their moral outlooks. Insiders are socialized to see at least some actions as functional and therefore not corrupt. Outsiders, unaware of the insiders' rules, tend to judge political action by moral absolutes. Thus the structure of liberal democratic government contributes to conflicting elite and public views of political right and wrong.     

National Human Rights Institutions: Domestic implementation of international human rights law

Does adopting a National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) make states’ international commitments to not torture more constraining? Many researchers have explored international human rights treaties’ abilities to constrain leaders from violating human rights, some focusing exclusively on the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT). Thus far, findings are not promising unless certain domestic conditions apply such as sufficient democratic space to air grievances or independent judiciaries. This article continues to explore domestic conditions by focusing on another liberal institution—National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). Torture is usually a secretive practice, and NHRIs act as information providers to potential mobilizers and domestic legal systems assuring international legal commitments are not empty promises. Using statistical analysis on 153 countries over the years 1981–2007, I find that when a country has ratified the CAT, the presence of an NHRI substantively decreases the chances the state will be an egregious offender.     

Human Rights,Public Budgets,and Epistemic Challenges

Ideally, governing institutions would be designed so that they would produce and implement with certainty ‘human rights-compatible budgets’, i.e. budgets that adequately reflect the obligations enshrined in human rights. However, there are various reasons why a government may ultimately fail to produce such budgets. This article focuses on under-examined challenges for budgeting for human rights: epistemically oriented challenges. More specifically, the article engages in ‘horizon scanning’, and it maps key underlying factors that can be conducive to epistemically oriented challenges to produce and implement human rights-compatible budgets. In addition, the article considers the road ahead from the perspective of institutional design.     

Inside Collaborative Networks: Ten Lessons for Public Managers

This paper offers practical insights for public managers as they work within interorganizational networks. It is based on the author's empirical study of 14 networks involving federal, state, and local government managers working with nongovernmental organizations. The findings suggest that networks are hardly crowding out the role of public agencies; though they are limited in their decision scope, they can add collaborative public value when approaching nettlesome policy and program problems.     

Civil Rights and Political Human Rights: Contesting Human Rights Failures within the Minimally Democratic State

Allen Buchanan argues that democracy ought to be added to the list of basic human rights, but he limits the conception of democracy to a minimum of electoral representation within the nation state, effectively collapsing human rights into civil rights. This, however, leaves him unable to address the problem of human rights failures occurring within established states that meet his standard of minimal democratic representation. In order to address this problem, I appeal to James Bohman's conception of the political human rights of all members of humanity, as opposed to the civil rights of the citizens of particular states. I argue that while this provides the basis on which to address the problem of human rights failures within minimally democratic states, Bohman's conception also entails the potential for deep tensions to arise between the different claims of civil and human rights.     

Human Rights and Assigned Duties: Implications for Corporations

Human rights imply duties. The question is, duties for whom? Without a well-defined scheme for assigning duties correlative to human rights, these rights remain illusory. This paper develops core elements of a general scheme of duty assignment and studies the implications for corporations. A key distinction in such an assignment is between unconditional and conditional duties. Unconditional duties apply to every agent regardless of the conduct of others. Conditional duties reflect a division of moral labour where different tasks are assigned to specific agents, whose default activates back-up duties of other agents. Corporations face unconditional duties to not directly violate the rights of others, and not undermine the division of moral labour through practices such as tax evasion or corruption. Being unconditional, these duties cannot be deviated from by reference to the misconduct of competitors. In addition, corporate conditional duties to protect, promote or fulfil rights can be activated if the state and other designated duty-bearers fail to discharge their duties.     

Human Rights Reporting: Rights,Responsibilities, and Challenges

This essay critically examines the intersections between news media and human rights in the context of the existing human rights framework. A survey of the fundamental provisions of international human rights law and of the evolving case law of human rights organs relating to media freedom and responsibilities reveals that existing gaps and underspecified obligations render problematic the normative guidance offered by the framework in addressing the pertinent human rights issues. However, this is part of the story. The problems associated with normative guidance are compounded by media practitioners’ contending approaches on the role of the media as “promoters of human rights.” The interplay between these factors is then examined through the prism of the two communities’ converging commitment to “truth-seeking.” This commitment can provide entry points to a more constructive engagement between the news media and the human rights community.     

Public Action for Public Science: Re-imagining the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

ABSTRACT

In Iowa, the heart of the United States Corn Belt, a small, publicly funded research center has championed alternative agricultural practices and fostered the creation of a sustainable agricultural community over the past 30 years, but its future is now uncertain due to funding cuts and increased corporatization of the university. We share our engagement in a grassroots campaign to restore and, ultimately, to re-imagine the future for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture as an act of ecofeminist praxis. This process documents the beginnings of a transformative moment. We find opportunities to begin a new dialogue about the place of a sustainable agricultural center, the role of science created by and for the public, and a new relationality among scientists, farmers, animals, and the Earth.