IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/buetqu/v22y2012i01p119-144_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Limits of Corporate Human Rights Obligations and the Rights of For-Profit Corporations

Author

Listed:
  • Bishop, John Douglas

Abstract

The extension of human rights obligations to corporations raises questions about whose rights and which rights corporations are responsible for. This paper gives a partial answer by asking what legal rights corporations would need to have to fulfil various sorts of human rights obligations. We should compare the chances of human rights fulfilment (and violations) that are likely to result from assigning human rights obligations to corporations with the chances of human rights fulfilment (and violations) that are likely to result from giving corporations the legal rights needed to undertake those human rights obligations. Corporations should respect basic human rights of all people. Non-complicity in human rights violations requires that corporations have the right to political freedom of speech. To actively protect people from human rights violations, corporations need the right to hire armed security personnel; such obligations should be limited to protecting corporate property and narrowly defined stakeholders. Obligations to spend corporate resources on human rights fulfilment are confined to contributing to specific projects. Corporations have no obligation to ensure a society in which human rights are fulfilled. This principle helps us understand why corporate obligations are substantially different from those of governments.

Suggested Citation

  • Bishop, John Douglas, 2012. "The Limits of Corporate Human Rights Obligations and the Rights of For-Profit Corporations," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 119-144, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:buetqu:v:22:y:2012:i:01:p:119-144_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1052150X00000099/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Björn Fasterling & Geert Demuijnck, 2013. "Human Rights in the Void? Due Diligence in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(4), pages 799-814, September.
    2. Marisa McVey & John Ferguson & François-Régis Puyou, 2023. "“Traduttore, Traditore?” Translating Human Rights into the Corporate Context," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 573-596, January.
    3. John E. Katsos & Yass AlKafaji, 2019. "Business in War Zones: How Companies Promote Peace in Iraq," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 41-56, March.
    4. Charlotte Bigard & Charlotte Michel & Maya Leroy, 2022. "Vers une performance écologique des activités en mer : Quels apprentissages tirer des entreprises maritimes innovantes de la transition ?," Working Papers hal-03632459, HAL.
    5. Matthew Amengual & Rita Mota & Alexander Rustler, 2023. "The ‘Court of Public Opinion:’ Public Perceptions of Business Involvement in Human Rights Violations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 185(1), pages 49-74, June.
    6. Nicolas Dahan & Jonathan Doh & Jonathan Raelin, 2015. "Pivoting the Role of Government in the Business and Society Interface: A Stakeholder Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 665-680, October.
    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. Mende, Janne, 2020. "Business authority in global governance: Beyond public and private," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Global Governance SP IV 2020-103, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    9. Mende, Janne, 2022. "Business authority in global governance: Beyond public and private," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Global Governance SP IV 2020-103r, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, revised 2022.
    10. Sarah Tiba & Frank J. van Rijnsoever & Marko P. Hekkert, 2019. "Firms with benefits: A systematic review of responsible entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility literature," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(2), pages 265-284, March.

    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:cup:buetqu:v:22:y:2012:i:01:p:119-144_00. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/beq .

    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.