Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Sustainable Development Goals, and Duties of Corporations: Rejecting the False Dichotomies

The attention that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has given to public–private partnerships in solving global concerns including poverty, sustainable development and climate change has shed new light on the question of duties of corporations in relation to economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights. At the same time, objections to recognizing the obligations of corporations in relation to human rights in general and to ESC rights in particular have continued to be made. At the formal level, these objections are reflected in new distinctions such as between the duties of states and responsibilities of corporations, between primary duties of states and secondary duties of corporations, and between obligations of compliance and obligations of performance. All these objections and distinctions are untenable and serve only to stultify the discourse on business and human rights. The current state of human rights is dynamic, not static; commodious, not stale. There is ample space in it to accommodate duties of corporations regarding ESC rights.