The Equator Principles and the ‘Business and Human Rights Debate’ : Hype or Hope?

The paper reviews the Equator Principles (EPs)-initiative in light of the recent ‘business and human rights'-debate. It shows that there is a substantial need for improving the EPs, especially, in terms of human-rights protection. In particular, the current ‘human-rights minimalism' of the EPs – focusing solely on the negative duty to respect while neglecting positive duties to protect and realize human rights – needs to be overcome. What is required from a business-and-human-rights perspective are the introduction of (more) mandatory and legally-binding elements into the EP-framework as well as the strengthening of the governance-structures of the EPs and its association – including adequate enforcement-, monitoring- and sanctioning-mechanisms. The paper gives an overview of potential reform steps which should be taken to ‘harden' this soft law transnational governance regime and to move towards a positive and leverage-based CSR-concept