Business and Human Rights

"Business and Human Rights. Towards a New Paradigm of True Democracy and the Sustainability of People and Planet, or Rhetoric Rights in a Sea of Deception and Posturing"
(A TLWNSI Issue paper)

This is an assessment of the debate on the responsibilities of business regarding human rights (HR) in particular, but also generally on the political, civil, economic, cultural and labour rights; an assessment that, furthermore, constitutes the position of The Living Wages North and South Initiative (TLWNSI), relative to business and HR.

In the struggle for establishing a framework regulating the responsibilities of business in respecting HR in their environs, there is a dominant position rejecting regulating the impact of business on the enjoyment of HR through a binding framework, with no other argument but the primacy of business over people and planet. It is more than evident the clear reluctance of the UN member governments to comply with their most basic responsibility: to enhance the current HR framework, in a world globalised by the owners of the market, and guarantee the protection of the current rights.

The assessment argues that the governments of the world and their multilateral agencies have clearly imposed, in a completely undemocratic fashion, an ethos where the market reigns supreme over people and planet. Consequently, they not only condone but enthusiastically support the systematic and customary violation of HR in business; with the payment of misery wages, vis-à-vis living wages, standing out prominently in what today constitutes a modern-day-slavery business practice.

Yet the study asserts that organised civil society is mounting pressure in a rationale and strategic manner to force governments to establish a universal legally-binding Human Rights framework in the sphere of business. Hence, the assessment ends by proposing a new HR paradigm with respect to business, from TLWNSI'S perspective, with true democracy and real sustainability as its underpinnings and not the market.