IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/bstrat/v29y2020i7p2919-2926.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mining, the environment, and human rights in Ghana: An area of limited statehood perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Uwafiokun Idemudia
  • Cynthia Kwakyewah
  • Judy Muthuri

Abstract

Although the global norms meant to guide corporate environmental human rights conducts have steadily improved, there have been limited efforts directed at exploring whether business‐related environmental human rights infringements have as a result reduced. To address this gap, this paper examines the extent to which mining companies meet their responsibility to respect human rights and ensure that environmental rights of community members in mining areas are not violated. By privileging community voices, the paper offers nuanced insight into why gaps continue to persist between corporate commitment to human rights objectives and community experience in areas of limited statehood (ALS). We show that weak governmental capacity, neoliberal business model, and differences in sociocultural logics mediate between corporate environmental human rights commitments and their conduct on the ground. The paper concludes by considering the theoretical implications for business and human rights in ALS.

Suggested Citation

  • Uwafiokun Idemudia & Cynthia Kwakyewah & Judy Muthuri, 2020. "Mining, the environment, and human rights in Ghana: An area of limited statehood perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(7), pages 2919-2926, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:29:y:2020:i:7:p:2919-2926
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.2581
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2581
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/bse.2581?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dirk Hanekom & John M. Luiz, 2017. "The impact of multinational enterprises on public governance institutions in areas of limited statehood," Working Papers 699, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    2. Susan Ariel Aaronson & Ian Higham, 2013. "‘Re-righting business’: John Ruggie and the struggle to develop international human rights standards for transnational firms," Working Papers 2013-5, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    3. James Van Alstine, 2009. "Governance from below: contesting corporate environmentalism in Durban, South Africa," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 108-121, February.
    4. Uwafiokun Idemudia, 2014. "Oil Companies and Sustainable Community Development in the Niger Delta, Nigeria: the Issue of Reciprocal Responsibility and its Implications for Corporate Citizenship Theory and Practice," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 177-187, May.
    5. Uwafiokun Idemudia, 2017. "Environmental Business–NGO Partnerships in Nigeria: Issues and Prospects," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 265-276, February.
    6. repec:cup:buhurj:v:4:y:2019:i:02:p:201-212_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Wettstein, Florian & Giuliani, Elisa & Santangelo, Grazia D. & Stahl, Günter K., 2019. "International business and human rights: A research agenda," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 54-65.
    8. Ongolo, Symphorien, 2015. "On the banality of forest governance fragmentation: Exploring ‘‘gecko politics’’ as a bureaucratic behaviour in limited statehood," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 12-20.
    9. Frans Melissen & Andrew Ngawenja Mzembe & Uwafiokun Idemudia & Yvonne Novakovic, 2018. "Institutional Antecedents of the Corporate Social Responsibility Narrative in the Developing World Context: Implications for Sustainable Development," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 657-676, September.
    10. Frederick Armah & Samuel Obiri & David Yawson & Ernest Afrifa & Genesis Yengoh & Johanna Alkan Olsson & Justice Odoi, 2011. "Assessment of legal framework for corporate environmental behaviour and perceptions of residents in mining communities in Ghana," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(2), pages 193-209.
    11. John Ruggie, 2008. "Protect, Respect and Remedy: A Framework for Business and Human Rights," Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, MIT Press, vol. 3(2), pages 189-212, April.
    12. Uwafiokun Idemudia, 2009. "Oil Extraction and Poverty Reduction in the Niger Delta: A Critical Examination of Partnership Initiatives," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 90(1), pages 91-116, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gabriel Botchwey & Michael Nest & Riccardo D'Emidio, 2023. "Working with legal small‐scale miners: Implications for development," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(6), pages 1239-1253, August.
    2. Gabriel Eweje, 2020. "Sustainability discourse: Contemporary issues from different perspectives," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(7), pages 2893-2894, November.
    3. John R. Owen & Deanna Kemp, 2024. "Corporate Responses to Community Grievance: Voluntarism and Pathologies of Practice," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(1), pages 55-68, January.
    4. Andrea Chiarini, 2021. "Industry 4.0 technologies in the manufacturing sector: Are we sure they are all relevant for environmental performance?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(7), pages 3194-3207, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Davide Fiaschi & Elisa Giuliani, 2011. "The impact of business on society: exploring CRS adoption and alleged human rights abuses by large corporations," LEM Papers Series 2011/13, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    2. Idemudia, Uwafiokun & Tuokuu, Francis Xavier D. & Essah, Marcellinus, 2022. "The extractive industry and human rights in Africa: Lessons from the past and future directions," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    3. Frank Hubers & Thomas Thijssens, 2023. "Protect, respect, remedy, and report? Development of human rights reporting in the context of formal institutional settings," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(6), pages 2783-2798, November.
    4. Jonathan P. Doh & Lorraine Eden & Anne S. Tsui & Srilata Zaheer, 2023. "Developing international business scholarship for global societal impact," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 54(5), pages 757-767, July.
    5. Štěpánka Zemanová & Radka Druláková, 2020. "Mainstreaming Global Sustainable Development Goals through the UN Global Compact: The Case of Visegrad Countries," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-10, February.
    6. Li, Mengxu & Liu, Jianghua & Chen, Yang & Yang, Zhijiu, 2023. "Can sustainable development strategy reduce income inequality in resource-based regions? A natural resource dependence perspective," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    7. Domènec Melé & Carlos Sánchez-Runde, 2013. "Cultural Diversity and Universal Ethics in a Global World," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(4), pages 681-687, September.
    8. Wehkamp, Johanna & Aquino, André & Fuss, Sabine & Reed, Erik W., 2015. "Analyzing the perception of deforestation drivers by African policy makers in light of possible REDD+ policy responses," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 7-18.
    9. Elisa Giuliani, 2016. "Human Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries’ Industrial Clusters," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 39-54, January.
    10. Joseph I. Uduji & Elda N. Okolo-Obasi, 2021. "Empowerment of Rural Young People in Informal Farm Entrepreneurship: The Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Nigeria’s Oil Producing Communities," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 21/033, African Governance and Development Institute..
    11. Van Alstine, James & Barkemeyer, Ralf, 2014. "Business and development: Changing discourses in the extractive industries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 4-16.
    12. Federica Nieri & Luciano Ciravegna & Ruth V. Aguilera & Elisa Giuliani, 2019. "Larger, more internationalized, better behaved? A configurational study of em erging market multinational enterprises' involvement in corporate wrongdoing," Discussion Papers 2019/255, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    13. Pei Sun & Jonathan P. Doh & Tazeeb Rajwani & Donald Siegel, 2021. "Navigating cross-border institutional complexity: A review and assessment of multinational nonmarket strategy research," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(9), pages 1818-1853, December.
    14. Heloïse Berkowitz & Marcelo Bucheli & Hervé Dumez, 2017. "Collectively Designing CSR Through Meta-Organizations: A Case Study of the Oil and Gas Industry," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 143(4), pages 753-769, July.
    15. Florian Wettstein, 2010. "The Duty to Protect: Corporate Complicity, Political Responsibility, and Human Rights Advocacy," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 96(1), pages 33-47, September.
    16. Preuss, Lutz & Vazquez-Brust, Diego & Yakovleva, Natalia & Foroughi, Hamid & Mutti, Diana, 2022. "When social movements close institutional voids: Triggers, processes, and consequences for multinational enterprises," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 57(1).
    17. Graciela Corral de Zubielqui & Howard Harris, 2024. "Why the COVID-19 Crisis Is an Ethical Issue for Business: Evidence from the Australian JobKeeper Initiative," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 123-136, February.
    18. Nina Seppala, 2009. "Business and the International Human Rights Regime: A Comparison of UN Initiatives," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 87(2), pages 401-417, August.
    19. Rama Murthy, Sudhir & Roll, Kate & Colin-Jones, Alastair, 2021. "Ending business-non-profit partnerships: The spinout of social enterprises," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(1).
    20. Griffith, David A. & Lee, Hannah S. & Yalcinkaya, Goksel, 2023. "Understanding the relationship between the use of social media and the prevalence of anxiety at the country level: a multi-country examination," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(4).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:29:y:2020:i:7:p:2919-2926. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-0836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.