The author uses the system of jural relations devised by Wesley Hohfeld in 1913 to elucidate the vexing question of how human rights fit within today's globalized system of corporate law. To give context, the author applies this analysis to the growing phenomenon of company-community conflicts...

A battle rages between the partisans of shareholder and stakeholder capitalism; the very heart and soul of corporate governance is at stake. This paper advances the scholarly debate by mapping Amartya Sen's distinction between culmination outcomes and comprehensive outcomes onto shareholder...

The author asks whether transnational corporate responsibility today should be vested in legal or natural persons. Three stylized points of view are considered: the welfare economist; the corporate counsel; and the human rights victim. With these actors in mind, the author addresses several...

This article from 1997 discusses how oil development in the Amazon basin of Ecuador threatens to displace indigenous peoples through environmental contamination and colonization. It describes one of the main strategies that local organizations use to resist displacement and defend local...

This paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of a private non-judicial grievance mechanism that was set up by a corporation in response to allegations of egregious human rights abuses. The mechanism was conceived and designed by Barrick Gold Corporation (Barrick), the world’s largest gold...

The author applies the concept of supervenience in contemporary metaphysics to Marx’s foundational proposition that the relations of production in a society “correspond” to the underlying forces of production. The author proposes that this correspondence relation be regarded as Marxian...

With Nevsun Resources Ltd. v. Araya, 2020 SCC 5 (Nevsun), the Supreme Court of Canada has changed the way that senior business decision makers must think about the human rights impacts of their decisions on people abroad. The author argues that Nevsun puts the multinational corporate decision...

This paper provides a framework for understanding the profound interrelationship of human rights, human development, and the right to a healthy environment. The author argues that concerted public action in environmental affairs is necessary for true advancement in human development, and for the...

Corporate human rights due diligence is now a social fact; it is no longer merely an idea or aspiration. This paper uses economist Frank H. Knight’s famous, albeit controversial, distinction between risk and uncertainty to help elucidate foundational concepts and challenges for the theory,...

In March 2021, BlackRock Investment Stewardship published a short but consequential document titled “Our approach to engagement with companies on their human rights impacts.” This represents a significant move by the investment management firm into the global “business and human rights”...