Webinar: What happens when human rights become management tools? Translating the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights into the corporate sphere
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Please note that this is a virtual event taking place via Zoom. If you are interested in attending, please register for the event on Eventbrite. Once you register, you will receive automatic email notifications 48 hours and 2 hours before the event with the Zoom invitation. Click on the orange 'View Now' button in the notification emails to access the Zoom meeting link, ID and password and direct yourself to the webinar.
Please also note that this event will be recorded, with the exception of any live audience questions.
The UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (the UNGPs) have become the ‘normalised platform’ for businesses to demonstrate their understanding of human rights responsibilities. Yet little empirical research exists to determine how initiatives like the UNGPs are implemented in everyday corporate practices. To provide illumination, this paper draws on two multinational case studies – a bank and an oil and gas company. Employing a qualitatively constructive, critical approach, which understands instruments of regulation like the UNGPs as socially constructed practices – simultaneously constructed by those who use them, and in turn, constructing a reality of human rights within a particular setting – the paper explores how the UNGPs are used by employees of both companies and their external human rights advisors, and the implications this might have on corporate accountability for human rights.
An audio recording of this event is available to listen to on Soundcloud
Marisa is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews, having recently completed her visiting fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. Her PhD thesis focuses on critically analysing companies’ implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the impact of transposing human rights into different corporate contexts. It also looks at the role of human rights intermediaries, those who help institutionalise human rights norms.