This book develops an analysis of the historical, political and legal contexts behind current demands by NGOs and the United Nations Human Rights Council to hold corporations accountable for their human rights violations. Based on an analysis of the range of mechanisms of accountability that currently exist, it argues that that those demands are a response to the failure of neo-liberal policies that have dominated the practice of politics and law since the emergence of this debate in its current form in the 1970s. Offering a new approach to understanding how struggles for hegemony are refracted through a range of legal challenges to corporate human rights violations, the book offers a fresh perspective for understanding how those struggles are played out in the global sphere. In order to analyse the prospects for using human rights law to challenge the right of corporations to author human rights violations, the book explores the development of a range of political initiatives in the UN, the uses of tort law in domestic courts, and the uses of human rights law at the European Court of Human Rights and at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. This book will be essential reading for all those interested in how international institutions and NGOs are both shaping and being shaped by global struggles against corporate power.
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Introduction: The Rarefied Politics of Global Legal StrugglesIntroduction: Corporate Human Rights ViolationsHuman Rights and Corporate AccountabilityA Mirror Image?The Rarefied Politics of Global ConsentGlobal Social OrderingCounter-hegemony and Resistance?The Structure of the BookChapter One: From Economic Cannibalism to Corporate Human Rights LiabilitiesIntroductionCorporations, Human Rights and the UNCorporations as Bearers of RightsCorporations as Political InstitutionsThe Draft NormsLobbying the NormsThe NGO LobbyConclusion: Untangling the Roots of UN PolicyChapter Two: Different Shades of VoluntarismIntroductionThe Global Compact: ‘Support Group’ or ‘Good Old Boys Club’?An American in the Court of King KofiThe "Continuation of a Business-Friendly Agenda"?The Guiding PrinciplesA Fake ConsensusConclusionChapter Three: A Manufactured ConsentIntroductionEvaluating the Role of the OECD GuidelinesComplaints Taken by NGOsMutual Agreement?No EnforcementCorporate Structural AdvantageConclusionChapter Four: Tort Law and the Struggle Against Corporate Human Rights ViolationsIntroductionThe Civil Justice System and Corporate AccountabilityAlien Tort Claims Act 1789The Business Lobby CelebratesEuropean Transnational Tort CasesTransnational Jurisdiction and the Imperial CourtTransnational Struggle?Conclusion: Nearly Absolute Non-AccountabilityChapter Five: Struggles for Corporate Accountability in the Human Rights Courts IntroductionPositive and Negative ObligationsPositive Obligations into the Private SphereThe Horizontal Effect in the European SystemThe Horizontal Effect in the Inter-American SystemNGOs and the Struggle for RecognitionStruggles for Collective RightsConclusionChapter Six: ‘Human’ Rights for ProfitIntroductionThe Corporate VictimCorporate Rights in EuropeCorporate Rights at the Inter-American Court Corporate Law Trumps Human Rights LawPolitical Struggles for Corporate RightsConclusion: New Mechanisms of Accountability for Corporate Human Rights Violations?Making Struggles Around Human Rights VisibleMoving Towards a Treaty?A Peoples’ Tribunal?
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781138361348
Publisert
2018-08-14
Utgiver
Vendor
Routledge
Vekt
453 gr
Høyde
234 mm
Bredde
156 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
210

Biographical note

Stéfanie Khoury is Research Associate the University of Liverpool, UK. Her research focuses on the lack of accountability of state and corporate violations of human rights. David Whyte is Professor in Socio-legal Studies at the University of Liverpool, UK, where he specialises in teaching and researching the relationship between corporate power and law.