Volume 6 : 1
Human Rights Challenges for Multinational Corporations Working and Investing in Conflict Zones
Corporate Complicity under International Criminal Law: A Case for Applying the Rome Statute to Business Behaviour
Regulating the Private Security Industry: Connecting the Public and the Private through Transnational Private Regulation
Ethical Accounting For The Conduct Of Private Military And Security Companies
False Extraterritoriality? Municipal and Multinational Jurisdiction over Transnational Corporations
Sunlight for the Heart of Darkness: Conflict Minerals and the First Wave of SEC Regulation of Social Issues
Shining Brightly? Human Rights and the Responsible Sourcing of Diamond and Gold Jewellery from High Risk and Conflict-Affected Areas
Corporate Human Rights Violations and Private International Law. A Facilitating Role for PIL or PIL as a Complicating Factor?
Human Rights Challenges for Multinational Corporations Working and Investing in Conflict Zones
Corporate Complicity under International Criminal Law: A Case for Applying the Rome Statute to Business Behaviour
Regulating the Private Security Industry: Connecting the Public and the Private through Transnational Private Regulation
Ethical Accounting For The Conduct Of Private Military And Security Companies
False Extraterritoriality? Municipal and Multinational Jurisdiction over Transnational Corporations
Sunlight for the Heart of Darkness: Conflict Minerals and the First Wave of SEC Regulation of Social Issues
Shining Brightly? Human Rights and the Responsible Sourcing of Diamond and Gold Jewellery from High Risk and Conflict-Affected Areas
Corporate Human Rights Violations and Private International Law. A Facilitating Role for PIL or PIL as a Complicating Factor?
Year
2012
Volume
6
Number
1
Page
131
Language
English
Court
Reference
J.C. DRIMMER en N.J. PHILLIPS, “Sunlight for the Heart of Darkness: Conflict Minerals and the First Wave of SEC Regulation of Social Issues”, HRILD 2012, nr. 1, 131-158
Recapitulation
Over the past two decades, expectations for corporations regarding human rights have risen dramatically. Those expectations have manifested in consumer purchasing decisions, the rise of the socially responsible investment market, voluntary codes of conduct, domestic and international legal requirements, lawsuits alleging various human rights breaches, and sharp reputational harms for deemed complicity in human rights abuses. The most recent step in the United States has been securities regulations aimed at “social criteria.” Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, an example of these, draws on the Kimberley Process diamond certification scheme and other international efforts to eliminate funding for conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa by requiring corporations that use specified minerals commonly found in the Democratic Republic of Congo and adjoining states to make certain disclosures in their securities filings. After explaining the history and substance of Section 1502 and the SEC’s proposed regulations under the law, this article discusses the various ways in which the law can be understood: as investor protection, foreign policy or a mechanism for raising the cost to corporations for violating human rights expectations. It concludes with suggestions for how multi-national corporations should respond to these increasing demands, in particular in light of the framework for business and human rights presented by United Nations Special Representative John Ruggie. As legal and social expectations increasingly focus on business and human rights, corporations must institutionalise concern for human rights within the organisation and in its relations with others in the supply chain.
