CSR and the Debate on Business and Human Rights: Bridging the Great Divide

By Florian Wettstein. Business Ethics Quarterly, 2012

243 citations recorded by the source corpus.

ABSTRACT: Human rights have not played an overwhelmingly prominent role in CSR in the past. Similarly, CSR has had relatively little influence on what is now called the “business and human rights debate.” This contribution uncovers some of the reasons for the rather peculiar disconnect between these two debates and, based on it, presents some apparent synergies and complementarities between the two. A closer integration of the two debates, as it argues, would allow for the formulation of an expansive and demanding conception of corporate human rights obligations. Such a conception does not stop with corporate obligations “merely” to respect human rights, but includes an extended focus on proactive company involvement in the protection and realization of human rights. In other words, the integration of the two debates provides the space within which to formulate positive human rights obligations for corporations.

Subfields: Law, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2c5d5f24ef0b53f097b04e585876f5a7d8a03185

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Citations in the corpus

Corporate Social Responsibility at the Base of the Pyramid (2013, background): “Human rights theory has played an important role in international business ethics and corporate social responsibility since Donaldson (1991) provided a theory of TNC human rights duties (Arnold, 2010, 2013; Campbell, 2006; Cragg, 2002; Cragg, Arnold, & Muchlinski, 2012; Kobrin, 2009; Wettstein, 2012”
Corporate Social Responsibility: Perspectives on the CSR Construct’s Development and Future (2021, background): “The field needs to move beyond just “respecting” human rights and get into proactive company involvement in protecting and realizing human rights (Wettstein, 2012).”
Rana Plaza collapse aftermath: Are CSR compliance and auditing pressures effective? (2016, background): “They furthermore argue that, in order to make the most of the capability-based remedial action proposed by Wettstein (2012), actors need to develop the unique capability to differentiate between the symptoms and root causes of human rights violations.”